It has started to rain. A fine drizzle, fizzing in the air, brushing against my hair and bare arms. A deep, rich smell rises from the fields surrounding the bungalow. The driver throws the Range Rover into reverse, and from behind the tinted window I look at the bungalow, stark in the headlights against the dark fields, its lace curtains illuminated behind the glass.
We skid backward down the drive, then the rear tires bump onto the laneway, and the driver whips the car around, accelerating, the bungalow disappearing behind us. This ride will be an exercise in not losing my head, I already understand that. For miles, all I can see outside the car are black hedgerows, shadowy leaves, the dark glint of a stream, and then suddenly we reach the motorway, a bright river flowing north toward Dublin. I look at the row of halogen streetlamps angled above the motorway from the concrete median.
“How much did MI5 offer to pay you?” asks the driver.
“Why? Are you thinking of touting?”
“Come on now. How much did they offer?”
“Not fucking enough,” I say, and he laughs. My control is cracking apart, though. I can’t keep playing this game for much longer.
On the motorway, I can see a handful of other cars, their headlights wobbling in the rain. It is three in the morning. Being up at this hour is familiar from nursing Finn. The 3:00 a.m. night feed was always the hardest to wake myself up for, the last one he dropped.
I barely recognize Dublin as we drive through the outer suburbs. Is this where I live, is this my home? The driver pulls up outside a church at the south end of Ranelagh, and the headlights find the churchyard gate, bleaching the rails white against the darkness. We climb out, and the sound of our heavy doors closing thuds through the quiet. He walks me between the gates, up a gravel path toward the church. Gravestones ring the church, mossed and tilting in the long grass. In the dark, I can see the shape of the church and the black yew trees standing to its side. Above us, the stained glass in the church looks like oil, glossy and dark. The driver hands me my tote bag. “Your car’s parked on Northbrook Road,” he says. “The dent’s not too bad, but you’ll be wanting to bring it to a mechanic. You don’t want rust getting in.”
That was an apology, I think, or as near to one as he will ever give me. “Right, okay.”
“Stand there,” he says, pointing to a yew tree, and I put my back against its trunk. “Wait until I’ve left, all right? Count to a hundred.”
He walks back down the path, with an easy, confident stride, like this night took nothing from him. The Range Rover is hidden from view, but I can hear the engine start, and see the red stain on the road from its taillights. I listen as he drives away. Above me, the yew branches creak in the wind.
I start counting. I make it to ten, then dig into my bag for my phone and dial 999. “Emergency services,” says the operator. “Which service do you require?”
Police, I think. Leaving the bungalow, I memorized the registration plates on the Range Rover before climbing inside. All I need to do is recite the number, and the police will track down the driver. An armored van will block the road ahead of him and another will swerve behind him. I remember the driver reaching his arms through the open window of my car, grabbing onto me, and I can nearly taste it, the moment when he feels that terror for himself.
And I can describe the bungalow to the police. A property somewhere between the N11 and the Wicklow Mountains, along a row of electrical pylons. With satellite maps, the detectives will be able to find it in minutes. They can send in a special unit to surround the property. Royce will see the armed officers and know that he is trapped and that I’m the one who did it. What wouldn’t be worth that, what wouldn’t I give for that moment?
“Emergency services,” says the operator again. “Can you hear me? What’s your name?”
I open my mouth to answer. It will be so easy, I can see it all spread out in front of me, tingling at my fingertips, unscrolling like a lit-up map. A few words in the next couple of seconds, and Eoin Royce will be back in prison.
“Stay on the line,” says the operator. “Don’t end the call, all right? It’s fine if you can’t speak, we’re tracing your location now, we’ll be sending a vehicle out to you.” Her voice is brisk and direct, reassuring. This isn’t my problem anymore. Other people were trained to deal with it, they’ll be taking over now. I feel the weight taken off me, an actual physical release, lifting my shoulders. Except then, someday soon, my cousin Aoife will open her door in west Belfast, and a gunman will shoot her in the face.
“Sorry,” I say, hearing my voice from a distance. “Sorry, I must have rung you by accident.” I hold my breath with the phone clamped against my ear, part of me hoping the operator won’t believe me. One more question and I’ll buckle. But then she is telling me to have a good night and ending the call, and I hear a groan leave my throat, a strangled sound fading away into the rain and darkness.
I can’t move. It’s as if the driver tied me to this tree, and I have to wait until someone comes to cut the rope. It seems important to stay in this position, like I need to preserve the evidence, but the police aren’t coming, this isn’t a crime scene. No one will ever know I was here.
Tomorrow morning, the priest will give mass inside the church, and nothing will seem any different. The parishioners won’t look twice at this tree. I’ve the urge to throw a brick through the church window, less out of anger than respect, like a signal. They’d want to know, too, wouldn’t they, that the IRA is using their church as a dumping ground.
Instead of bricking a window, I tear a strip of loose fabric from my dress and drop it on the ground under the tree. Someone will see it, someone will wonder where it came from, and that will have to be enough, for now.
The roads in Ranelagh are deserted, the orange streetlamps glowing on the parked cars and quiet houses. My feet feel swollen inside my shoes, and damp. Something has happened to my balance as I drag myself up the road toward my house. Anyone looking out their window will think I’m leathered. The last time I was out this late, I probably was. Years and years ago. My vision would have been shuddering then, too, though from vodka and not fatigue, or shock, or whatever you’d call this.
I weave up Sallymount Avenue, not looking before crossing the roads, since there’s no sound of a motor anywhere nearby. In the darkness, the bloodstains down the front of my dress look like tar. Something is yawning open inside me, deep and dark as an ultrasound screen. I’m alive, they’ve let me go. I limp past houses where my neighbors are sleeping, and grip my doorknob for balance while turning my key in the lock.
No one sees me come in, no one knows where I’ve been. Inside, I don’t turn on any lights, like I’m the one committing a crime, breaking into my own house. In the darkness, I strip off my dress, dropping it in the hamper, and wrap a towel around myself. Finn is in Donegal with his father, but I go into his room anyway. I kneel beside his bed, the way I do every single night after he has fallen asleep. I hold one of his muslin blankets to my chest, breathing in its smell, then I curl up on the rug under his bed. A few minutes, I think, then I’ll take a shower, make coffee, figure out a plan.