9

‘I’VE JUST HAD a text!’ Robert called. ‘It’s from Ciarán!’ He raced downstairs and into the kitchen, his face alight with relief. ‘He’s okay. Says he’ll be home tonight.’

Lynda locked the patio doors behind her. Everything in the garden had stayed the same. There were no calling cards this morning. There was some comfort in that. ‘Ring him, quickly,’ she said, ‘maybe the phone is still on.’

‘I’ve tried,’ said Robert. ‘It’s off. But at least we know he’s safe.’

Lynda looked at him. ‘How?’ she said. ‘How do we know that? He’s been gone nearly twenty-four hours. Jon could be using his phone. We don’t know what’s happening.’

Robert dragged one hand through his hair. ‘Let’s not assume the worst, okay? If he doesn’t come home by this evening, then I’ll go to the Guards. Nobody would take it seriously if we reported anything now. A teenager, missing for one night? Particularly after what happened,’ he added. ‘I’d rather not have to go into that. How would we ever prove that it wasn’t Ciarán?’

Larissa. ‘Jesus,’ said Lynda. ‘Not even two days ago. I’m going to call Katie again,’ she said, suddenly. ‘I want her home, here. Safe with us. She’ll be back from Toulouse today and Jon knows her address.’ She looked at Robert, could feel fear begin to gather. ‘Now I’m being paranoid, and I know it. But I want her where we can see her.’

Robert nodded. ‘I agree. Let’s take no chances. Call her. I can go and collect her. One of us should stay here, though.’

‘Robert, I couldn’t stay here on my own,’ Lynda said. ‘Just the thought of it terrifies me.’ She shivered. ‘Let me go to Galway – the drive will give me something to do, something practical. Do you mind?’

Robert shook his head. ‘Not at all. I’m happy to stay. I’d welcome a visit from that little fucker.’ He paused. ‘Though somehow, I think we’ve seen the last of Jon. He’s done his damage. But are you sure you’re up to the drive? It’s a good three hours.’

Lynda nodded. ‘Yeah. It’ll make me focus.’ She called Katie’s mobile. It went straight to message minder. ‘Katie, it’s Mum. When you get back to your flat from the airport, stay put. I’m coming to get you. Your dad and I both want you home. Love you and talk later.’

Lynda snapped her mobile shut and took her handbag off the chair.

‘I’ll tell her about Jon, face to face. I want to get on the road straight away. But let me know the minute you hear anything from Ciarán. Or from Jon.’ She was about to say, ‘Or from Danny,’ but changed her mind. ‘My mobile will be on the whole time.’

Robert kissed her. ‘You drive carefully.’

‘I will. And you take care: don’t assume, by the way, that we’ve seen the last of Jon – or Danny. I’ll be back sometime tonight.’

As Lynda pulled out of the driveway, she was assaulted by the realization that her whole life had been transformed, turned inside out in less than forty-eight hours. Nothing was stable any more. Or safe. Or predictable.

Only one thing was sure.

She would do whatever it took to save her family.

Just as she pulled up outside Katie’s flat, Lynda’s mobile rang. ‘Robert,’ she said. ‘Any news?’

‘He’s here,’ said Robert. ‘Safe.’

Lynda rested her head on the steering wheel. ‘Oh, thank God. Thank God for that. Is he okay?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Robert. ‘He’s angry, aggressive and, I would say, coked up to the eyeballs. But he’s here. Up in his room. I’m keeping my distance. Oh, and he refuses to talk about Jon.’

‘Don’t let him out of your sight. I mean, don’t let him go out, Robert. Keep him there.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Robert’s voice was grim. ‘He’s staying right where he is.’

‘How did he look?’

‘I’ve told you.’ He sounded puzzled.

‘No, I mean, how was he dressed?’ Lynda suddenly, urgently, needed to find out.

‘Like a Harlem thug, if you must know. Those awful baggy jeans, displaying half his arse. Shoelaces undone. And a back-to-front baseball cap, with some sort of obscene message on it. Can’t remember exactly. Why? What does it matter?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Lynda. ‘When I work it out, I’ll let you know. But you’ve got to make sure he doesn’t leave the house.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Robert again. ‘When he calms down, he has a lot of explaining to do. The other night, for starters.’

‘No, wait until I get back,’ said Lynda. ‘I don’t want him stamping off in one of his rages. If he does, we’ll never get to the truth.’

‘We’ll be waiting. Have you reached Katie’s yet?’

‘I’ve just pulled up outside this minute. We’ll be back on the road in half an hour.’

‘Okay. Take it easy on the way home. Neither of us has had much sleep.’

‘I will. See you later.’

Katie was waiting. Lynda saw the airline tags still attached to the suitcase and felt sorry for her daughter. What a homecoming. As soon as she saw her mother, Katie started to cry. ‘What’s going on, Mum? I don’t understand. What’s happened to Ciarán?’

Lynda hugged her. ‘It’s okay. Your dad’s just called. Ciarán’s home, safe. There’s a whole lot we don’t understand, either. Let me tell you what I do know.’ And Lynda heard herself tell a story that sounded somehow unreal, even to her own ears. It felt insubstantial, full of coincidence and guesswork. But Katie was angry.

‘I can’t believe you let him have my room,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

Lynda was shocked. ‘But he spoke to you, and you said it was okay. I spoke to you, and you said it was okay.’

Katie’s eyes lit up with fury. ‘Okay that he moved in. Why would I care about that? I was going to be away, anyway. It didn’t matter to me.’

‘But they told me you were fine with it – they just had to put away the “girly stuff” and keep it safe?’

Katie was indignant. ‘That’s Ciarán talking. When would I ever call my things “girly stuff”? They told me Jon was staying in Dad’s office, where uncle Danny stayed, that time he was ill. Or when we thought he was ill.’

Something Katie said triggered a memory. ‘They didn’t come here, did they? Just before you went away? After a football match?’

‘No,’ said Katie. ‘I’ve never met Jon. And I only spoke to him on the phone that one time. Why?’

Lynda shook her head. ‘All these lies. I can’t keep up with all of them. God knows what the two of them got up to that night.’ Katie was looking at her, puzzled. ‘Look, don’t mind my ramblings – lots of things have started to fall into place. I’m sorry about your room, Katie, so sorry.’ Lynda sat on the lumpy sofa and accepted the cup of coffee Katie handed her. ‘This guy Jon is bad news. I wish I’d never set eyes on him.’ She sipped, grateful to avoid her daughter’s eyes. ‘He arrived out of nowhere. We don’t even know his last name, for God’s sake.’

‘What?’ said Katie. ‘You gave somebody a home and you didn’t even know his name? What are you like?’ Her face was incredulous. Lynda could feel embarrassment prickle along the back of her neck. How easy she had been to take in; how easy they both had been. Had Danny taught them nothing?

‘I know who he is,’ Katie was saying. ‘He told me, that night on the phone.’

Lynda looked at her. ‘Are you serious?’ Something like hope began to nudge.

‘Yeah,’ said Katie, slowly. ‘In fact, now that I think of it, he made a point of it. Said he was the sweetest man I’d ever know. We laughed about it.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Lynda, puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Sweetman,’ she said. ‘His name is Sweetman. Told me he came from Waterford.’

He wants to be found, Lynda thought suddenly. He wants us to know who he is, where he came from. And the trail, she knew, would lead them straight back to Danny.

Where it all started, over a quarter of a century ago.

Quickly, she called Robert.

‘You be careful,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this.’

‘I’ll keep in touch,’ said Lynda. ‘I can’t not follow this up. Don’t you see? This is all part of the game. He wants us to see how clever he’s been.’ She pulled the map towards her. ‘We’re going to Waterford, as soon as I have a sandwich and a shower.’

‘Jesus, Lynda, it’ll take you hours.’ Robert sounded alarmed.

‘I don’t care. Katie and I will share the driving. You just keep Ciarán safe. I have to do this, Robert. I don’t have a choice.’

He sighed. ‘Keep in touch, then. Constantly. And stay over in Waterford tonight. You hear? You’re not to be driving through the night.’

‘Of course we’ll keep in touch,’ said Lynda. ‘You take care.’ She hung up and turned to Katie. ‘Where’s your laptop?’

‘In my bedroom. Why?’

‘Come on. We need to look up the phone directory. As many Sweetmans in Waterford as we can find.’

‘There’s just the one,’ Katie said. ‘Here – look.’

Lynda peered over her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Maybe there are others, ex-directory.’

‘Maybe,’ agreed Katie. ‘But let’s try this one first. At least it’s a start.’

Lynda rested her index finger on the screen. ‘Jack and . . . is that Martina?’

‘Yeah,’ said Katie. ‘Jack and Martina Sweetman, 49 Waterville Avenue. Wait, I’ll look it up on Google Earth.’

Lynda watched as the map appeared on the screen. Katie zoomed in and pinpointed the street. ‘There it is.’

‘Can you print that?’ Lynda asked.

‘Sure.’

The printer whirred and spat out an A4 page in colour. Lynda folded it and put it into her handbag. ‘Let’s go. While there’s still a bit of light.’

‘Don’t you want a shower? And a sandwich?’ Katie was startled.

Lynda shook her head. ‘That was just to keep your dad from fretting. I’ll be fine.’

‘Okay, if you’re sure.’ Katie shrugged. ‘I’ll do the first bit of the drive. I can get us out of Galway faster than you can, anyway.’ She walked over to Lynda and hugged her. ‘It’ll be okay, Mum.’

Lynda kissed her forehead. ‘I know it will. I’ve got you in my corner.’

The street was deserted. One of the lamps flickered, casting strange shadows across the pavement.

‘This is it,’ said Katie. ‘Number 49.’

Lynda turned off the ignition. ‘Great navigating,’ she said. ‘Right. You ready?’

‘Yeah,’ said Katie. ‘But if there is anything that makes me uncomfortable, we’re outta there, okay?’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Lynda. ‘I’m not feeling one bit brave.’

Lynda locked the car and they both made their way up the short garden path. She knocked at the door. Lynda saw that the outside of the house was cared for, the garden neat, if still a bit bedraggled by winter. There were some cautious daffodils just under the living-room window. Curtains were drawn and things looked cosy. That was always a good sign. Katie stood close to her on the step. They waited, but there was no answer. Lynda began to feel the slow seep of disappointment.

‘Let’s just hang around for a while, Mum,’ Katie said. ‘They could be anywhere. On the phone – in the bathroom. Let’s give it another minute or two.’ And she pressed her finger to the bell. They could hear it ringing, shrill and insistent. And then it stuck.

‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ said an irritable voice, making its way down the hall. The door was wrenched open and an angry woman stood just inside it. She was dishevelled, her hair in disarray.

‘It’s stuck,’ said Katie at once. ‘We’re very sorry, but we can’t get it to stop.’

‘Just a minute,’ said the woman, and disappeared down the hallway. She returned with a knife, and prised the bell-push from its housing. The noise stopped at once. ‘Thank God for that,’ the woman said, with a half-smile. ‘Now how can I help you? I’m not buying anything, so if that saves you time—’

‘And we’re not selling,’ said Lynda, quickly. ‘We’d just like to talk to you for a few minutes.’

Her face looked wary. ‘What about?’

‘About a twenty-one-year-old man, who is in a lot of trouble.’

The woman’s face clouded over. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

Lynda opened her bag. She pulled out the photograph of Jon and Ciarán that neither had known she was taking; the one where they stood together in the garden, talking, smoking. She’d intended to have it framed for each of them as a gift. Now, she handed it to the woman standing before her. There was silence for a moment or two.

‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘You’d better come in.’

They followed her down the hall towards the kitchen.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’ She ran her hands through the tangles of her dark hair. ‘Excuse my appearance. I was just about to have a bath.’

‘I’m sorry for disturbing you. This won’t take long. I’m Lynda Graham, and this is my daughter, Katie. We’re looking for this boy, yes, but only because we want to understand what’s going on.’

The woman held out her hand. ‘I’m Martina Sweetman. Everyone calls me Tina.’ She seemed about to say more and stopped.

Lynda could see that she was making up her mind about something. She waited, searching the other woman’s face for clues. Who was she? She could see no resemblance to Jon at all. What if this had all been for nothing?

‘Where did you get that photograph?’ she asked, finally.

‘I took it,’ said Lynda. ‘That’s my son, Ciarán, with the dark hair. We know the other boy as Jon. They became great friends at UCD. We know nothing else about him, except what he’s told us. He said his parents were separated and he needed a place to stay, just for a while, to get his head sorted. We took him in.’

‘So – why are you looking for him?’

Lynda hesitated. ‘It’s a long story.’

The other woman shrugged. ‘You’re here. You obviously want to tell it. I can listen.’

When Lynda had finished, Tina said: ‘I’ll put on the kettle. Would you like tea or coffee? Only instant left, I’m afraid.’

‘Instant’s fine,’ said Lynda.

Katie nodded. ‘Yeah, grand.’

‘Sweetman is my husband’s name. Jack Sweetman.’ She nodded towards the adjoining room. ‘He’s in there with my three sons, watching football.’ There was a sudden roar from the room next door. Tina grinned. ‘See what I mean? Man U. More important than God in this house.’ She paused. ‘You found us through the telephone directory, I suppose? There aren’t too many of us.’

‘Yes,’ said Lynda.

‘And that’s how the boy you call Jon found us, too.’ Tina looked sad.

Memories, thought Lynda. Tina’s expression had become distant, as though she had been taken away somewhere else.

‘What is his name, then?’ asked Katie.

Tina looked at her, her face now unreadable. ‘By a very cruel twist of fate, his name is Daniel. Of all the names in the world, they called him Daniel. Daniel Morrissey.’

Lynda didn’t understand, although something had begun to tingle at the base of her neck. It felt as though her throat was constricted. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Please just tell us.’

‘My maiden name is Munroe,’ she said. ‘I have one sister, whose name is Amy. We are incredibly close, always have been.’ Tina sipped at her coffee. ‘Sometime in 1988, my sister, who was nineteen at the time, fell hook, line and sinker for this absolute charmer that she met in a club. He was twenty-one at the time.’

Lynda felt sick. She could feel where this was going.

Tina looked at her. ‘It’s an old, old story,’ she said. ‘I loathed the guy, first time I clapped eyes on him. But Amy was very naive. She’d always been fragile, and I suppose a bit protected at home because of that.’

Katie reached across and squeezed Lynda’s hand. ‘Mum, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Go on, Tina, please.’

‘You could write it yourself,’ Tina said, looking from her to Katie. ‘Amy leaves home, pretending she’s going to stay with a girl that she worked with. She and I had the most massive row, but there was no stopping her. She said I was jealous. That I didn’t want her to have somebody of her own.’ Tina looked down at her hands, hugging the cup of coffee. She shook her head. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth. But he was a dangerous man. I could smell it. In six months, it was all over. She got pregnant, he fucked off, end of story.’

‘And the child?’

‘Sorry,’ said Tina. ‘I must be accurate. She got pregnant and left him, before he knew about the baby. But he was going anyway. She was so terrified of him and so unhappy that she knew there was no way they could have the baby together. I admired her strength. It really surprised me.’ Tina looked at them. ‘I need a cigarette. I’m trying to stop, but in the circumstances . . .’ She reached into the cupboard behind her. ‘Anyway, Amy upped and left and came to me. To us, Jack and me. We’d moved from Dublin, so we were a safe distance from my parents. She didn’t want them to know.’

‘And the child?’ Lynda repeated, hardly trusting herself to speak.

Tina nodded towards the photograph. ‘That’s him. That’s Daniel. I couldn’t believe it. That’s what his adoptive parents called him. Of all the names.’ She shook her head again.

‘And the father?’ asked Lynda, heart hammering.

Tina looked surprised. ‘Oh, I thought that was why you were here. To track him down.’

‘In a way,’ Lynda admitted. ‘I just need you to confirm it.’

‘His name is Danny. Danny Graham. He’s the father.’

Lynda exhaled. She felt as though she’d been holding her breath for years.

‘This guy is my cousin?’ blurted Katie. ‘What is going on here?’

Lynda put one hand on Katie’s arm, the pressure asking her to hold on, just a little bit longer. She turned to Tina. ‘If he didn’t know that Amy was pregnant, then how did he know he had a son?’

‘He didn’t, until his son went looking for him. And his son came here first. Talk about a chip off the old block.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ said Lynda.

‘We had Daniel adopted when he was three weeks old. Jack and I used our surname, to put as much distance as possible between Amy and Danny. That was what she wanted. She wasn’t even able to hold the baby after he was born. She spent months afterwards being almost catatonic. It was a nightmare.’ Tina stood abruptly and filled the kettle again.

‘The baby went to an adoptive family in County Meath,’ she went on. ‘And that’s all I know about them. When the time came, they didn’t stop him looking for his biological parents, although it must have broken their hearts. And so, he came here first. He thought I was his mother.’

‘And did you tell him who was?’

She nodded. ‘Eventually. The minute he stood on the step, I knew who he was. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. He intimidated me, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘And what about his father? How did he get to Danny?’

‘I promised to give him all the information I could about his father. As long as he left his mother alone. He promised he would – not that I’d put much store on that. He insisted on knowing everything.’

Tina ground out her cigarette and almost immediately lit another. ‘I appealed to his better nature,’ she said, dryly, ‘said that his mother was very unwell. I told him Danny’s name, date of birth, everything I could, including the fact that he had gone to England. I presumed he was still there. He left, then, and I haven’t heard from him since.’

‘Well,’ said Lynda, ‘he found his father. Or they found each other.’ She rested her head in her hands, suddenly exhausted.

‘I’m sorry for you,’ said Tina. ‘Truly I am. I know how destructive Danny – the father – was. I can only assume that Jon, as you call him, is following in his footsteps. I’m not all that happy myself that either of them – both of them, now – know where I live.’

‘You’ve been very good to talk to us,’ said Lynda. ‘We really appreciate it.’

‘Not a problem,’ Tina said. ‘I’m curious – how did you trace him to me? I mean, how did you know what name to look for? Or did you know all along?’

Lynda smiled sadly. ‘Well, as you now know, he left our house under something of a cloud. We had no way of finding him. But he’d told Katie his surname. They spoke on the phone one night, just before he moved in. I think he wanted us to find out who he was. It’s like some sort of a cruel game.’ Lynda stopped. ‘And my son is the pawn.’

‘Jesus,’ said Tina. She was silent for a moment. ‘If he’s anything like his father, then I don’t envy you.’

Lynda nodded. ‘He’s done a lot of damage. And he’s still doing it. He and his father. An unholy alliance.’

‘I’m truly sorry,’ said Tina. ‘The two of them, the two Dannys together. Talk about a force of nature. They were peas in a pod. Couldn’t believe my eyes, the day young Danny – Jon – turned up here. It’s like my mother used to say. Set in stone.’

‘What do you mean?’ Katie was curious.

Tina shrugged. ‘My mother had this old-fashioned belief that badness was handed down, parent to child. If a mother or father was evil, then the child was likely to be evil as well.’

‘Evil,’ repeated Lynda. ‘It’s not the word I would have used.’

‘It exists,’ said Tina. ‘Whatever you call it.’

‘So you’ve no chance if one of your parents is bad?’ Katie’s voice was sceptical.

‘I’m not sure that that’s what she meant, in fairness,’ said Tina. ‘It wasn’t a blanket that covered everything. But she did believe the bad stuff was handed down; that nature was way more important than nurture.’

Lynda stood and held out her hand to Tina. ‘Thank you again, Tina. Here’s my mobile number if you ever want to contact me. Feel free. You’ve been very kind.’

‘Not at all,’ said Tina. ‘To be honest, I feel pretty helpless.’

‘We all do,’ said Lynda. ‘But it’s some comfort to know what we’re dealing with.’

‘Jesus,’ said Katie as they drove away. ‘My own cousin.’

Lynda nodded. ‘Yes. I’m not as surprised as I should be. I always felt Danny was behind this. What an awful thing to do, though. To corrupt your own child like that, make them part of your revenge.’ How had Danny done it, she wondered. Had Jon just been an innocent teenager, before his father got his hands on him? Or was there something, after all, in what Tina had said?

Katie chimed in, echoing her train of thought. ‘It’s a very bleak view of life, what Tina says, though, isn’t it?’ She looked sideways at her mother. ‘You don’t believe in that stuff, do you, Mum? That kind of pre-destination?’

Lynda concentrated on the road ahead. ‘Katie, I don’t know what I believe in any more, to tell you the truth. Apart from my family.’

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

‘Are you and Dad okay?’ Katie’s question was sudden.

‘How do you mean?’ Lynda knew exactly what she meant, but the question had taken her aback.

‘I’m not a child. I wasn’t a child when it happened, either. Jesus, sometimes parents haven’t a clue what their kids see.’ Katie turned and stared out the passenger window. She was angry.

‘I made a mistake, Katie,’ said Lynda. As she spoke, Lynda knew that it was true. ‘Probably the worst mistake of my life. I had an affair and I regret it, bitterly. Even more when I realize how many people I hurt. I thought it was just me.’ She slowed down, moved into the inside lane.

‘I’m not judging you,’ said Katie. She still kept her face turned away from Lynda. ‘I just want to make sure that you and Dad are okay now.’

‘Yes,’ said Lynda. ‘Yes, we are.’ She risked a sidelong glance at her daughter. ‘Everything else is falling apart all around us. But strangely, we are okay, the two of us.’

‘Good,’ said Katie. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ She turned back to look at her mother, her face full of emotion. ‘I knew all along, and I was really mad at you. But I understand more now how these things happen. Now that I’m older.’

Lynda stifled a smile. Twenty-one. Such wisdom. She asked a cautious question. ‘Did Ciarán know?’

Katie snorted. ‘You must be jokin’. Ciarán saw nothing but himself. He was always the same. Self-centred little shit.’

Lynda was surprised at her vehemence. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘He got away with murder. You spoiled him.’ Katie’s tone was furious now. She glared at Lynda. ‘You picked up after him all the time – or had me do it. And I bet you’re still doing it. You sheltered him – both you and Dad, although I’ve no idea why. I used to think it was because he was the baby. Then I believed it was because he was the boy. I got used to being second fiddle.’

Lynda felt as if she’d been slapped. ‘Katie – that’s just not true!’

‘It is! It is true! You just won’t see it!’ her voice cracked.

Lynda indicated and pulled over onto the hard shoulder. She turned off the engine and pressed the hazard light switch. The blinking started at once. She turned to Katie, her eyes searching her daughter’s face. ‘Is that really what you believe?’

‘Yes!’ said Katie. ‘You took me for granted. You expected good marks and good behaviour from me, always. But Ciarán – you always made excuses for his shitty behaviour and let him away with way more than I was ever allowed.’ Tears had started. ‘And no matter what I did, I was always second best. Why do you think I couldn’t wait to get away from home and go to college in Galway?’

Lynda’s head reeled. Second best. Danny’s cry, all his life. She took Katie’s hand. ‘I’m devastated to hear you say that,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you how much we both love you, how proud we are of you. And how much I miss you.’

Katie snatched her hand away, and wiped angrily at her tears. ‘Yeah, well, I never felt that. Ciarán always came first. He always took up so much room. I felt like there wasn’t enough . . . space . . . for me.’

Lynda thought about that. She stroked Katie’s hair back from her forehead. ‘What you say is partly true. Bad behaviour always takes up more room than good, Katie. But he didn’t come first, not in the way you think.’ Lynda paused, trying to figure out the best way to say it. ‘He occupied a lot of our attention and we knew we could trust you. I’m sorry if that made you feel sidelined.’

Katie blew her nose. ‘Even the weekend you were going to spend with me in Toulouse got cancelled because of that little shit, didn’t it?’ She turned her gaze on Lynda. Her face was full of hurts, old and new.

‘No,’ said Lynda at once. ‘That’s not true – not in the way you mean. We had to cancel because of Danny. I didn’t want to tell you about all the horrible things he was doing, not while you were away from home. We couldn’t leave. It wasn’t safe.’

‘Yeah, well,’ she said. ‘I guess now isn’t a good time. Ciarán’s in trouble again. And he is my brother.’ But her anger seemed to have abated.

‘We’ll talk about it again, Katie, and that’s a promise.’ Lynda started the engine.

‘Well, that’s one good thing,’ said Katie. She glanced over at Lynda, and half-smiled at her.

‘What?’

‘You and your promises.’

Lynda waited. She almost held her breath. She could feel shadows of Emma all around her.

‘You always keep them. That’s one really good thing. You always keep your promises.’

 

10

IT WAS AN HOUR or so before dawn when Lynda pulled into the driveway. She could see that the downstairs lights were still on. Robert was waiting for them. She leaned across to Katie, who was fast asleep. It seemed such a shame to wake her.

Robert appeared at the front door and stepped out onto the driveway. He peered into the car and smiled at the sight of his sleeping daughter, then he opened the passenger door carefully. Lynda released the seat belt and, without a word, Robert leaned in and lifted his daughter bodily out of the seat. She stirred and opened her eyes. With her face filled with sleep, she looked like a child again.

‘Dad,’ she murmured, winding her arms around her father’s neck.

‘Ssshh,’ he said, and kissed her forehead. ‘Let me carry you up to your bed, princess. We’ll talk later.’

Lynda watched as he climbed the stairs. What a perfect thing to do, she thought, particularly tonight. She’d tell him. He needed to know just how right he’d got it.

Dawn crept up on the dirty skyline, just as Lynda came to the end of her story. ‘And that really is everything,’ she said. ‘This woman Tina filled in all the blanks.’

Robert nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘For not listening, for not taking Danny seriously enough. For all of it.’ He shook his head. ‘My own nephew, my own family. Jesus Christ.’

Lynda held out her hand to him. ‘It’s not your fault that Danny is your brother,’ she said, standing up from the kitchen table. ‘Come on. Bed. I’m exhausted. But I’m really beginning to feel that we’re coming to the end of the nightmare. And you’re sure Ciarán hasn’t moved?’

‘Positive,’ said Robert. ‘I even changed the locks on the doors, back and front. He can’t get out. Besides, I checked his room, just before you got home.’ He grinned at her. ‘Good investment, that locksmith. Stroke of genius, I’d say.’

‘To be continued,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow’s another instalment.’

He reached for her as soon as they got into bed. She went to him, gladly.

‘We’ll come through,’ he whispered.

She could make out his face above hers, shadowed in the lightening room. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘We will.’

Lynda woke again at seven. She’d slept hardly at all and was happy to make her way downstairs at once. She pulled back the curtains and stepped outside through the patio doors. She’d not had the heart to do anything with the garden after her tortoise had been destroyed and, as the days went by, it got harder even to touch it. She still stepped outside each morning, though, reluctant to let go of the possibility. Maybe one day, when all of this was fixed, she’d settle her stones once again.

She went back inside now and made a note to herself to call the college. Her horticulture students would have to do without her this morning. Friday. God. What a week.

When Katie came down to the kitchen at nine, Robert and Lynda were still sitting at the breakfast table. Robert stood up at once and Katie walked into her father’s arms.

‘Dad,’ she said, and hugged him. ‘It’s good to be home.’

Robert kissed her. ‘Great to see you, kid. Welcome back. You look terrific.’

‘And thanks for carrying me up to bed last night. Hope I didn’t wreck your back.’ She looked at him archly.

Robert wagged a finger at her. ‘No more ice cream, y’hear? Otherwise you’ll have to walk.’

She grinned at him. ‘Cheek of you.’ She sniffed the air. ‘You makin’ chilli for tonight?’

Robert nodded. ‘Your favourite, isn’t it?’

Katie nodded.

‘It’s hard to keep occupied when the women in your life are swanning all over the countryside,’ Robert went on. He buttered more toast and looked up at Katie. ‘Want some?’

Katie shook her head. ‘Aw, poor Dad,’ she said. ‘Left at home doin’ the cookin’ while the girls have adventures.’ She pulled a cereal bowl from the dishwasher and rinsed it. ‘Smells good, though. Chilli always was your party piece.’ She pointed upstairs. ‘Ciarán’s awake. I heard him in the bathroom.’

Lynda nodded. ‘Yeah. We’re waiting to talk to him.’

‘Do I stay or go?’ asked Katie, pulling the Corn Flakes out of the cupboard. She looked at her parents in turn.

‘Stay,’ said Robert and Lynda together.

Seconds later, Ciarán came into the kitchen. Lynda saw at once what Robert had meant. A Harlem thug, he’d said. She looked at Ciarán, took in the sloppy jeans, the unlaced trainers, the back-to-front baseball cap. And all the old defiance was back. It was there, in the way he slouched, in his lowered gaze, in the fists he had thrust into his pockets.

‘Hiya, Ciarán,’ said Katie.

‘Hiya.’ He didn’t look at her.

Something about the baseball cap caught Lynda’s attention. Ciarán never wore one. It had never been part of his style. Suddenly, something disturbed her; something she caught, out on the edge of her vision. ‘Ciarán,’ she said. ‘Take off the cap, will you?’

He glared in her direction. ‘Why?’

‘Because your mother asks you to,’ barked Robert. ‘And if you don’t, I will.’ He made to stand up from the table.

‘Fuck’s sake!’ muttered Ciarán and snatched the cap off his head, tossing it onto the table.

Lynda gasped. Robert stopped in his tracks. Katie stared at her brother.

‘Ciarán,’ said Lynda. All the implications had started to sink in. ‘What on earth have you done?’

He ran his hand through his cropped, white-blond hair. He shrugged. ‘We did it yesterday. For a laugh. It’s no big deal.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Robert. ‘We did it?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ciarán. He finally let his gaze drift back towards his father. ‘Me and Jon. He dyed his black, I dyed mine blond. I don’t know why it’s such a big fuckin’ deal.’ He shifted from one foot to the other. ‘It’s only hair dye.’

‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ said Lynda. ‘Ciarán, you have no idea what you’ve just done!’

‘What?’ said Ciarán, spreading out his hands in front of him.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Robert, angrily. ‘Your friend Larissa was raped in this house three days ago. You were out of your mind at the time. And guess what? Guess how she identified her rapist?’

Ciarán had begun to look frightened. He fidgeted, looking from Robert to Lynda to Katie. He didn’t answer.

‘I’ll tell you, then, will I?’ said Robert. His fists were clenched. ‘ “Golden Boy”, she called him. The blond one in the house. Not the noisy one who sat downstairs, pissed out of his head. The blond one attacked her. And you, you idiot, you’ve just made yourself fit that description.’

Ciarán took his hands out of his pockets. He looked bewildered.

‘Let me fill in the blanks for you,’ said Robert, leaning into Ciarán’s face. ‘Jon is the one who raped her. But bottom line, you’re the one who’s going to get the blame.’

Ciarán looked disbelieving. ‘Has she . . . I mean . . . did she say that . . .’ And his voice trailed away.

‘Where is this guy Jon?’ demanded Katie. ‘Why isn’t he here with you?’

Ciarán shrugged, looked at the ground. ‘He said he needed to move on for a while,’ said Ciarán. ‘He’s a free spirit. But he’ll keep in touch. He has my mobile.’

Robert snorted. ‘Yeah, sure,’ he said. ‘He’ll keep in touch all right. He’s gone for good. Vanished without a trace.’

Ciarán sagged and Lynda saw his face fill with emotion.

‘Sit down, Ciarán,’ she said. ‘There are a few things that you need to hear.’

He dragged a chair out from the table and slumped into it. Just then, the doorbell rang.

‘I’ll go,’ said Robert. He looked over at Lynda. Jon, she thought for one wild instant. Had he come back? Robert left the kitchen and closed the door behind him. She heard his footsteps make their solid way towards the front door.

‘What do I need to hear?’ Ciarán asked her. But his voice was dull.

The kitchen door opened again, before Lynda had the time to reply. Robert stood there, flanked by a man in a suit and a woman in uniform. The man was tall and bulky and he looked as though his suit wasn’t comfortable. The woman was smaller, slighter. Then Lynda saw Robert’s face. The pallor, the fear in his eyes. He didn’t speak.

‘Mrs Graham?’ It was the woman who spoke. ‘I’m Garda Fiona Dolan and this is Detective Paul Galvin. We’ve just been explaining to your husband that there has been an incident reported regarding your son.’

Lynda’s mind sped out in all directions. Had Larissa gone to the police, despite her terror?

‘What sort of an incident?’ asked Robert now, guarded.

‘We have had a complaint regarding a serious assault on a young woman at this address on Tuesday night. We—’

Lynda interrupted. She wanted to say: We can explain . . . but Robert glanced at her, warningly.

‘May we know who is making the complaint?’ Robert asked.

The policewoman shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not, not at this stage.’

‘But my son has been accused?’ Robert’s voice was cold.

‘Yes, sir, that is correct. We have had a complaint against a Ciarán Graham of this address.’ She looked down at her notebook. ‘We would like him to help us with our enquiries. Ciarán Graham is your son – am I correct in assuming that?’

‘I think we’ll follow up this conversation in the presence of our solicitor,’ said Robert.

Lynda looked at him. What was he doing? They could clear this up right now, tell them that Ciarán wasn’t the one responsible, that Jon was. That Jon had taken over this family, that it was all part of a spiral of revenge. She wanted to shout at them that their boy was innocent – and then, suddenly, she realized how it would look. Parents protecting their son. Shifting the blame to another boy. And Jon, suddenly nowhere to be found.

‘I’ll contact my solicitor immediately,’ Robert said. ‘You’ll hear from us just as soon as I’ve spoken to her, and to my son. I believe that’s all for now.’

‘This is an extremely serious allegation, Mr Graham. We will need to speak to your son as soon as possible.’ Detective Galvin looked directly across the table at Ciarán. ‘It would be much better if he came to the station of his own accord.’

‘I am aware of the gravity of the situation,’ said Robert, stiffly. ‘We all are. I will be in touch.’

‘We will need to hear from you no later than six o’clock this evening,’ said Galvin. He handed Robert a card. ‘That’s my number, or you can get me at the station. I must repeat that this is a serious matter. We have in our possession a detailed statement of the events of the other night.’

‘You will hear from me this afternoon.’ Robert’s tone was firm. He was already ushering the two Guards out of the kitchen.

‘Not so fast, Sir,’ said Galvin. He stood his ground. ‘We also have a warrant.’

‘A warrant?’ Lynda could barely trust her voice.

The detective turned to face her. ‘Yes, ma’am. In cases such as this, we need to gather the evidence for forensics as quickly as possible.’ The detective replaced his notebook in his inside pocket. ‘Our warrant is to collect the bedclothes from the scene of the alleged crime.’ He laid the warrant on the breakfast table, in front of Lynda, and Katie’s breath caught.

Lynda glanced across at Ciarán, who had now begun to tremble violently. He had placed his arms on the table. Lynda could see him trying to steady himself.

‘Well, if you must, you must,’ said Lynda. Robert looked as though he had turned to stone. Where will they go? Lynda wondered. To Ciarán’s room, or to Jon’s? How far ahead of them all was Danny?

Robert spoke. ‘I’ll go upstairs with you,’ he said. The three of them left.

‘Is your door unlocked?’ asked Lynda.

Katie looked at her in surprise. ‘Of course.’

Lynda’s mind was racing. Katie had slept in that bed last night. Jon’s bed. His sheets were already in the wash. And nothing would be found on Ciarán’s bedclothes, because there was nothing to be found. He was innocent of this. She thanked God he had been incapable on the night in question, otherwise . . .

‘I can’t remember,’ Ciarán was saying, his eyes filled with terror. ‘I can’t remember anything. I don’t know if I hurt her. I just don’t know.’

Lynda lifted a warning finger to her lips. ‘Sssshhh.’

He rested his head on his arms and started to weep. Harsh, gulping sobs that racked his whole body. Katie stood up and went over to him. She began to stroke his head, his face, his hands. She was stricken, unable to speak.

Lynda looked at both of them, Ciarán’s white-blond hair stark against the dark blue of Katie’s dressing gown. Jesus, she thought. What a mess. What an unholy mess. It can’t get any worse than this.

Robert came back into the kitchen. ‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring Jennifer’s office first. Get an appointment immediately. In the meantime, Ciarán, you’d better start to remember any detail that you can from Tuesday night. We can’t protect you from this. A DNA sample would clear you, but it may well be too late for that. And Jon’s gone. Your cousin is long gone.’

Ciarán looked up. Shock had registered across his eyes. ‘Cousin?’ he said. He looked from Robert to Lynda.

She turned to Katie. ‘Put on the kettle, love, will you please? This is going to be a very long morning . . .’

When Robert came back, he had his coat on. ‘Let’s go, Ciarán,’ he said. ‘We have an appointment with Jennifer in half an hour. She’s fitting us in.’

Ciarán stood up. He looked from Robert to Lynda. ‘What do I tell her?’ He looked small, defeated. No matter what Lynda had said to him while Robert was out of the room, he’d persisted in his loyalty to Jon. ‘You don’t understand him,’ he kept saying. ‘What he’s been through. He was a brilliant friend to me.’

Katie was aghast. ‘You can’t believe that, Ciarán. Look at the evidence.’

He’d turned on her then. ‘You weren’t here. You don’t know shit, Little Miss Perfect. He’s my friend and he’s done nothing wrong. There’s some explanation for this, I know there is.’

Katie looked as though she’d been slapped. ‘He’s no friend of yours,’ she said, shortly. ‘He’s disappeared and left you up to your eyes in it. How about that for friendship, or cousinly concern?’

Lynda had intervened. ‘That’s enough, both of you! Ciarán, you’re going to have to face a few uncomfortable truths this afternoon. Use the time to get your head straight. Not to fight with your sister.’

He’d glared at Katie and seemed about to reply when Robert entered.

‘Okay. Ready?’ Robert took his car keys off the table. ‘You coming with us, Katie?’

She hesitated. Ciarán turned to her. ‘You can if you like,’ he said. ‘It’s okay . . . if you want to.’ There was a hesitant note of apology in his voice. Lynda felt a pull of grief as she looked at him. He felt fragile. He seemed to have disappeared. His clothes were standing there, making their outlandish statement, whatever that was, but Ciarán had retreated from them, and was curled into himself.

‘Come on, Katie,’ said Lynda. ‘We’ll all go. Let’s all stay together.’

Katie nodded. She picked up her coat off the hall stand and followed her brother out to the Jeep.

At least the morning is dry. Sky the colour of cold steel, but no rain. That makes things easier for the watcher. Not so many tracks to be covered. This morning’s five o’clock observations have shown the house on the left to be empty. Ken and Iris – that’s her name – daft flowery-sounding name if ever he heard one, are away. That’s good. A lucky break. He keeps thinking Ken and Barbie, has to stop himself. Anyway, they’re gone since early yesterday afternoon. So that bit of the coast is clear.

Things seemed a bit unusual in the house early this morning, though. There seemed to be more activity than normal, more people moving about in the kitchen. At first it was just an impression. But when the watcher held the Cantek to his eye, that impression was confirmed. A girl. Wide Boy had said nothing about there being a girl. Two boys, yes, but no girl. The watcher felt agitated. This was not in the plan. Any more deviations from the routine and he’d have to consider aborting the plan.

And so he watched for longer than normal. Mr Robert was still there, at nine o’clock, when he should have been long gone. Mrs Lynda just gave the garden a cursory glance when she came out onto the decking. That was not like her. Not like her at all. And she was still there, sitting at the table, long after she should have left for work. This was not the normal Friday routine. The watcher could make out other forms in the kitchen, too, at one stage, shadowy figures. But they were standing too far back for him to get a proper fix on who they might be.

Bingo! At ten-fifteen, finally, there is movement. He watches closely. Four figures leave the kitchen. Time to go time. Quickly, now, he stuffs his camcorder into the rucksack and hurries down the slope. If he’s fast enough, he might just see them drive away. This has to be done, over with, even more quickly than he has planned. This Friday is unusual, and unusual makes him uncomfortable.

The watcher’s nervousness increases. He still doesn’t like going round to the front of the house, no matter how good the story. He has his trusty postman’s bag, full of flyers, begging for help in Somalia, this time, and he is wearing his innocent grey anorak. Funny how people don’t rate men in anoraks. Trainspotters, potting-shed merchants, dry old sticks: that’s how the world sees them. He allows himself a small smile. Bertie certainly bucked that trend. But only after he got rid of the anorak.

The watcher trudges around the corner, making sure to insert his red and black flyers into every letterbox along the street. Easy does it. Whatever you do, don’t break the pattern. He spots the Jeep in the distance, making its way down the hill towards the roundabout. He quickens his step. A woman washing windows doesn’t even register his presence. Kids kicking a ball flow round him, like a river around stone. The invisible man.

He reaches number nineteen. He bends just a little and pushes the flyer through to make sure it lands in the hallway, that it doesn’t get caught in the flap. He notices that the letter box is broken. He takes a quick look over his shoulder. The street is pretty much empty. Window woman has gone inside. Kids are all looking the other way. The watcher walks around to the side gate, his step surprisingly light. His heart begins to speed up. He’s forgotten how much he still misses this bit: the pure adrenaline rush of it. Almost better than sex.

He drops his bag of flyers just below the deck. He reaches in and pulls out his rucksack, slings it over one shoulder. Then he steps up onto the wooden surface. He moves stealthily, fast for one of his size. He takes his wire-cutters out of his inside pocket and gets ready. He breaks the window of the downstairs bathroom, the window closest to Ken and Iris’s house. He uses a hammer wrapped in cloth to muffle the crash. At once, the alarm begins to scream. The sound is deafening, piercing his eyes and ears, making his blood sing. He reaches inside and cuts the wire to the sensor. The screaming stops at once. The abruptness of the silence is almost painful.

He waits for a moment, but nobody comes. Typical. Chances are, even if he’d left the alarm sounding off, still nobody would have come. But he can’t afford to draw attention to himself. He eases open the bathroom window which gives without complaint. And then he is inside.

He tiptoes into the kitchen and wipes his feet with systematic thoroughness on the mat just inside the door. Heels, toes, sides, just as he has always done: like a surgeon washing his hands. And he is here, after all, to perform an operation of sorts.

The kitchen is even nicer than it looks from the top of the garden wall. Things are orderly here, neat. The air is warm, as though the central heating has only just clicked off. A slow cooker on the counter breathes chilli into the air. The watcher feels immediately hungry. He hasn’t been able to have breakfast today, not with all this looming. Food slows you down. You need to shed as much as possible, to prepare for flight. That’s why fear makes people sweat, piss, shit themselves. You’ve got to be unburdened. A physiological manifestation, they’d called it, back in the days of training courses. The physical results of a psychological state.

He moves into what Wide Boy has called the studio. Over by the huge picture window, there is a wooden desk with a kind of sloping surface. He’s seen one like it before, in the office of an architect he’d once gone to arrest. Your man had been on the take. Thousands of pounds must have passed across that desk in brown envelopes. The watcher is still amused that most people haven’t got a clue about white-collar crime. That arrest was back in the good old days when planning corruption was only beginning to hit the headlines. Thing is, they’re just more careful nowadays not to get caught, that’s what he figures.

Mrs Lynda’s studio desk is littered with drawings. And paintings, too, dozens of them. Small, delicate pieces of work. The sort of stuff Amy would like. Kind of oriental looking. Poppies, freesias, the branch of an orchid, a spray of apple blossom. But all single flowers, no bunches, and nothing in vases. He’s tempted to slip a few of these small pictures into his anorak pocket. They’d make a nice gift; get Amy to smile at him again. He sees then that these are maybe like sketches, rehearsals for the real thing. And the real thing looks like painted silk – long, narrow wall-hangings, dozens of them, all around the studio. Nice. They’re real eye-catchers.

But he resists the temptation. That’s how people trip themselves up. It’s greed, just as often as carelessness. He learned that lesson a long time back: it only took the once. He prides himself on never again making the mistakes that’ll get him caught. And so he moves away from the desk and heads for the wall furthest from the patio doors.

He pulls a Stanley knife out of his rucksack and gets to work. ‘All of them,’ Wide Boy has said. ‘Leave nothing intact. Nothing.’ He does the wall-hangings first, slicing from bottom to top, the blade moving along the silk cleanly, as though through water. When he’s finished, they look like some sort of weird ribbon-art. Maybe it’ll start some sort of arty craze. He might have done Mrs Lynda a favour.

Then he turns his attention back to the paintings. They’re done on some sort of stiff paper, full of small lumps and bumps. As though the paper has been made by hand, not straightened and smoothed into sameness by a machine. They tear easily enough, though. He scatters the bits all over the desk, all over the floor. They look quite pretty, really, like large splotches of confetti.

There are several jars on the flat portion of the desk. Half-filled with murky water, they hold dozens of paintbrushes, all of varying sizes. It’s easy to tip them over. He watches as the water rushes across the large sheets of paper, and then slows down, soaking bluely into their surface. He shuffles the pages a bit, making sure the water reaches all of them. They look like the architect’s drawings, actually, from what he can remember – except these ones seem to be of gardens, not buildings. He pulls out the digital camera and takes a couple of shots of his handiwork. They look clearer, starker than the reality. The light seems harsh. He has a moment of uncertainty. A slithery feeling of guilt that snakes around the back of his neck. Not his business, this. Just acting on behalf of another. Nevertheless, the feeling lingers. He’d prefer to be out of here.

He checks his watch now and goes back through the kitchen. He drops his rucksack just outside the door. He doesn’t need anything from it upstairs. Keeping low, he makes his way down the hall and up the stairs. He moves quickly between each of the bedrooms. ‘All of them,’ Wide Boy has insisted. ‘Don’t leave anything untouched.’ He does the usual stuff: a bit of slashing here, a bit of a mess there. Mattresses upended, drawers turned over, surfaces swept clean. He takes another few photos as proof of the pudding.

He pauses in what is obviously a girl’s room. Teddies, dolls, stuffed toys litter every surface. For some reason, they remind him of Amy and he baulks. He can’t damage these. What would be the point? Harmless bits of fur and fabric. He puts the Stanley away. Wide Boy will never know.

He leaves and hurries downstairs again. He picks up his rucksack and enters the room that gives out onto the front garden. He doesn’t like this exposure, either – the curtains are open. So he works fast.

He takes the files out of the filing cabinet, strews their contents all over the floor. He takes books off the shelves and leaves some where they fall. Others he kicks under the desk, or stuffs behind the radiators.

Now for the most important bit. He checks his watch again. Twenty-seven more minutes and he’s gone. Wide Boy has told him how important this office bit is. He wants the laptop, or the desktop, or whatever is there, to be destroyed. ‘I want no possibility of any files being retrieved,’ he says. ‘You know computers, don’t you?’

And the watcher says yes, he knows about computers. He likes the question. It means that Wide Boy knows fuck all, and that makes his job easier. But he plays along for now, boasts about how he can get into Robert’s system without even knowing the password, that kind of thing.

Wide Boy’s eyes light up at that. ‘Really?’ he says. ‘How do you do that?’

But the watcher says not to worry, he’ll look after it. ‘We call it a worm,’ he says, ‘and it burrows into files, corrupting them.’ He waits, figuring that Wide Boy will be impressed. The watcher thinks that he might even have a bit of fun with this, at WB’s expense.

‘A worm,’ says Wide Boy. And starts to laugh. ‘You mean, like a worm in the garden? I like that. Burrowing away into the darkness. A nice bit of symmetry.’ He grinds the cigarette butt under his heel. That annoys the watcher. The pub has supplied an ashtray outside, a big one. Why does he have to litter the place like that? The watcher has a bizarre instinct to arrest this man for littering. In his head, he laughs at himself for that.

‘Or,’ he goes on, ‘I could always format the hard drive. That means that everything is wiped. Clean slate.’

Wide Boy looks at him. ‘Which is better?’

The watcher shrugs. ‘Depends on what you want. Formatting the hard drive is a once-off. The worm causes trouble that lasts longer. Prolongs the pain. It’s up to you.’

‘I’m tempted by the worm,’ says Wide Boy. The watcher sees him consider it. ‘But nah. I’ll go for the instant fix – the hard drive thing. More dependable. Takes away the chance of repairing it. Am I right?’

The watcher is tired of this conversation. He already knows what he’s going to do, so the discussion is pointless. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘you’re right. Formatting the hard drive is the way to go.’

Wide Boy nods. ‘Do it.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Gotta go. I have another appointment. We done here?’

‘Yeah,’ says the watcher. ‘We’re done here.’

‘Okay,’ Wide Boy says. ‘I need to consult one other person about this hard drive thing. Just to be sure it’s what I want. Can you meet me in O’Brien’s tomorrow night, just for ten minutes?’

The watcher shrugs, annoyed despite himself. ‘Sure. What time?’

‘Let’s say eight. It won’t take long.’

When he leaves, the watcher wonders who the ‘one other person’ is. He doesn’t like this, doesn’t like the fact that these games are spreading beyond the boundaries of the two of them. Once you move outside a tight unit, it’s all so much harder to control. He’ll listen tonight, sure, but this time, he’s going to do his own thing.

It’s one of those little ironies that the most important thing the force ever did for him was to help him get to grips with technology. Before they let him go, they sent him on courses for all the latest and greatest. Made him employable, at least in their eyes. They didn’t want to consign a forty-five-year-old man to uselessness. He supposes they’d expect him to be grateful for that. Anyhow, he’s kept up the skills, over the years, although things change so fast these days, he finally feels he’s being left behind.

Inside Robert’s office now, the only thing that worries him is having to stand still for longer than he likes. He moves to the other side of the desk, away from the window. He decides to start with the laptop. That’s where most people keep the up-to-date stuff. He wonders why Robert doesn’t have it with him.

Fuck it. Just do it.

He pulls on a fresh pair of surgical gloves, stuffing the used ones into the pocket of his anorak. He retrieves the set of Philips screwdrivers from the front pocket of his rucksack. Then he draws the laptop towards him, across the desk, and turns it over. He disconnects the power cable, to give him more ease of movement. Quickly now, he removes the four screws that keep the casing in place. He lifts off the cover and places it to his left on the floor beside him. The hard drive releases easily. He pulls it from its slot and places it on the desk to his left. Then he glances at his watch. He can feel the perspiration across his forehead. Get a move on. Time is running out.

He turns to the desktop now. Lifting the box onto its side, he unscrews the casing and pulls out the drive. This one is a bit more tricky, a bit less accessible. Plastic clips can be a bugger. But he’s there. He places this one on the desk to his right. Twenty-two minutes to spare. This is cutting it tighter than he likes.

Right, he thinks. Movin’ on. He pulls the two replacement hard drives from the main section of his rucksack and places them on the floor to his right. Wide Boy has supplied him with these, pulling them triumphantly out of a briefcase last night, as they sat, briefly, in a quiet corner of O’Brien’s pub, said he thought replacing the hard drives would be even better than formatting the old ones. The watcher has asked no questions. WB has taken great trouble to assure him that the specifications are all correct. Count on it, he says, with that self-satisfied smirk that has begun to grate on the watcher’s nerves.

Just in case the drives don’t fit though, the watcher has brought a selection of magnets with him. If Wide Boy has got it wrong, he has no intention of ever coming back to this house again. When this morning’s over, it’s over. If the hard drives don’t do the business, the magnets will. More and more, the watcher wants this to be done, finished with. Wide Boy is a creep, and hanging around him is making the watcher feel edgy. It feels as though his strings are being pulled, and he doesn’t like it. Back in the day, he was the one in control. He doesn’t like handing that power over to anybody. Ever.

Working fast now, he inserts one of the drives into the slot of the laptop, the other into the desktop. He can feel his shoulders relax as both drives slide into place without any difficulty. Thank Christ for that. He replaces the casing of each machine now, screwing them both securely into place. Then he puts the small screwdrivers into their case and stows them again in the front pocket of his rucksack.

He reaches for the original hard drives and throws these, too, into the open mouth of the rucksack, securing the flap with its belt and buckle. He remembers drilling a hard drive open years back, out of curiosity. Inside, it looked like a three-dimensional map of some sort of surreal city – highways, bridges, the flat metallic roofs of buildings. It had a strange kind of beauty, he thought at the time.

Thirteen minutes. Go.

He leaves the downstairs office and crosses the studio, being careful to stay away from the window. He walks through the kitchen and pulls the patio doors closed behind him. Mrs L should be more careful about leaving keys in locks . . . Once outside on the deck, he pauses and pulls a woolly hat out of his anorak pocket, shoving it down on his forehead so that it covers his eyebrows. Then he picks up his bag of flyers, making sure to conceal the rucksack that hangs over one shoulder. He hunches forward and walks through the side gate, pulling it to behind him.

Out on the street again, he turns quickly into number twenty and resumes his flyer routine. Another dozen or so houses and that should be enough. It’s the recycling collection day, so, after a bit, he’ll dump his bag at random into a wheelie bin. Preferably one clustered with a few others on a corner somewhere, so that ownership might not be obvious should any nosey parker be looking.

Then, around the corner, he’ll take off his hat and stand up straight. Crossing the next street, he’ll shrug himself out of his anorak. Once he reaches the Dart station, he’ll put it on again, this time with the green inside, rather than the grey outside, showing. A great boon, the old reversible jacket.

He grins to himself as he imagines Robert’s face. Both machines intact. Laptop – miraculously – not stolen. Then, he’ll switch on and wait, anxiously, for his system to reboot. Instead, he’ll watch over and over again as colourful images continue to gyrate on both screens. A repeating image, one that never changes. No matter what he does, that’s all there is to see. He can access nothing else, because there’s nothing else to access.

The watcher figures that he’ll be home by lunchtime. Then, this evening, he’ll head out for a casual pint, meet Wide Boy and finish the business. He’s decided to bring Amy out for an Indian tonight. He feels exhilarated. Another job done. Another successful outcome. All that early stuff to do with the garden felt dull, low-level. But today has been exciting, satisfying. It’s interesting, how close he feels to the people whose house he’s just left. Intimate, almost. As though he knows their most secret secrets.

He reaches the Dart station with five minutes to spare. Just enough time for a cigarette. And the prospect of three and a half grand in cash tonight, into his hand. He feels lucky: a chance encounter with a random stranger and he’s five grand better off.

It doesn’t come much easier than that.

Danny is pleased. His boy has done well. The outcome is even better than he could have hoped. Now Danny sits in the corner of the pub, getting ready for the final act. He sips at his pint and orders a second one just as the watcher comes through the door.

‘Good timing,’ he says, indicating the seat across from him. ‘Another one for my friend, here,’ he calls to the barman. The watcher is always punctual. The barman delivers the pints and Danny pays him for both, waving away the watcher’s protests. The watcher is on edge. Danny can taste his anxiety. He knows how much the man wants his money. He can see it in his eyes. The man wants to be paid so that he can go home. Home to his wife, his comfortable little nest. Well, not so fast, Danny thinks. I’m not finished with you yet, boy, not by a long shot.

The watcher nods his head in thanks, lifts his glass in salute. He takes one sip of his Guinness and sits back, expectant.

‘Well, Mr Phelan,’ says Danny. He watches the watcher, enjoys the way one eyelid flickers in surprise. No names, no pack drill. That has always been their agreement.

‘Mr Thomas Phelan,’ he says. He’s enjoying this. Nothing like the element of surprise to keep your enemy off balance. He knows what’s coming next. He’s always been good at being one step ahead.

‘I’m well, thank you, Mr Graham.’ The watcher gazes at him. His expression is unreadable. ‘Mr Danny Graham.’ His voice is low now, with an edge of steel to it.

Danny nods in delight. Just as he thought. ‘As a former copper,’ he says, swallowing the last of his pint, ‘it’s the least I would have expected. I understand you were good at your job. Once.’

This time, the man’s face is impassive. ‘Pay me what you owe me,’ he says, ‘and I’ll be on my way. I’ve no time for games.’

Danny sighs, sitting back in his chair. ‘Now, I just don’t think I can do that,’ he says. ‘You see, there are some loose ends here.’

The watcher leans forward. His gaze is intense. ‘I did what you employed me to do,’ he says. ‘Let’s keep to the rules. Pay me.’

Danny shakes his head. His tone is regretful, patient, as though he’s dealing with a conscientious, but limited student. ‘You don’t understand,’ he says. ‘I can’t do that.’ He reaches into his pocket. ‘By the way,’ he says. ‘These are copies. The real thing is safe.’

He places a CD on the table in front of him. ‘Here’s the evidence of your vandalism. Won’t be difficult to convince the cops. Inappropriate surveillance, wasn’t that it? Wasn’t that why they fired you in the first place?’ Danny has allowed his voice to grow louder. A couple of men sitting at the bar turn to look in their direction. Then they return to their newspapers.

‘And in addition,’ Danny lowers his voice again, ‘you recorded yourself destroying that poor woman’s garden. It’s all here,’ and he picks up the CD and waves it in the air. ‘Pretty poor practice for an ex-cop, isn’t it? A man of the law?’ He allows his tone to be incredulous at the questions he is driven to ask. A nice touch, he feels.

The watcher’s eyes fill with hate. Danny is pleased. Now we’re getting somewhere. Then something else settles across the man’s face. Danny is not able to read it, not yet. The watcher reaches into his pocket and pulls out something slender and black.

‘Digital recorder,’ he says. ‘I’ve downloaded our conversations – all of them. They’re sound files. Already attached to emails.’ He reaches into his inside pocket and retrieves his phone. ‘This is a BlackBerry,’ he says. ‘And those emails are ready to send. I’ve still got friends in the force.’

‘But you’d incriminate yourself,’ Danny says softly.

The watcher shakes his head. ‘You’d be part of my ex-colleague’s investigation. I’ve checked. My immunity would be part of the deal. After all, you’re the controller here, the instigator. We have files on you, going way back. And this time, your brother and his wife have already reported you to the Guards. Did you know that?’ He knows he’s flying a kite here, but it’s what most sensible, middle-class people would do.

Danny sits back, considering this. ‘I see,’ he says. The man may be telling the truth, he may not. It hardly matters, not any more. It makes the final card all the more glorious.

‘Let’s leave that aside for a moment.’ Danny pauses. ‘We have other, more interesting things to discuss. How’s your wife?’

The watcher looks at him, startled. The defences are finally pierced now. ‘What did you say?’

‘I asked you how’s your wife. How’s Amy?’ Danny signals to the barman for another round. ‘Amy Munroe?’ Then he turns back to the watcher and smiles. ‘Well? It’s a polite inquiry, after all we’ve done together. All we’ve been through. How is she?’

The watcher pushes back his chair. ‘None of your fuckin’ business,’ he says.

Danny admires him, just a little. Pride, loyalty to his wife, to his life, prevent him from asking how Danny knows Amy. He waits until the watcher has almost reached the door of the pub.

‘And Tina?’ he calls. ‘And, of course, Amy’s son? How are they all?’

The watcher turns slowly. Danny sees that his face is yellow, not white. He is reminded of Robert, standing on the doorstep that day. Telling him never to come back.

‘What did you say?’

Danny waits until the watcher makes his way back towards the table.

‘What did you say?’ he repeats.

Danny notices that his hands are now fists, with white knuckles under translucent skin.

He smiles, makes a face full of sympathy, concern. ‘Didn’t Amy tell you? She and I were an item for, oh, nearly two years. Of course, it’s a long time ago now.’ He lowers his voice, draws the watcher in closer. So close he can see the pockmarks on his face, see the red veins in his eyes. ‘I fucked her,’ he says softly. ‘Didn’t you know that? We have a lovely son.’

Then his cheek explodes under the force of the other man’s fist. He hears glass breaking, shouts, the clamour of chairs falling, running footsteps. He stumbles, but catches the back of the chair and rights himself, just in time. He won’t be brought down by anyone.

The barman has leapt over the counter and has the watcher’s arm twisted behind his back. The other customers are watching, still as a photograph. Some have their mouths open. Others have glasses halfway to their lips. Danny notices, in that heightened way you notice details in a crisis, that some of the women have moved closer to their men. One has her hand on a mobile phone. All are watching, waiting.

‘You’re barred!’ the barman says, pushing the watcher roughly towards the door. ‘Get out before I call the Guards. And you,’ he says, pointing to Danny, his forefinger stabbing, ‘you sit for ten minutes and then make yourself scarce.’ His voice is no-nonsense, full of righteous authority. ‘I never want to see either of you here again. Take your argument somewhere else. Not in my pub.’

At the door, the watcher turns. His face is stricken.

Danny sits, gathers up the CD, the digital recorder and the BlackBerry off the table. He feels quite calm. He’s guessing that the emails are a bluff. Doesn’t matter, anyway. First thing tomorrow morning, he’s history. Miles away, before anyone can even begin to come after him. When he looks up again, the door of the pub has closed.

‘Have you a rear exit?’ Danny walks over to the bar. He touches his face gingerly with the tips of his fingers. The barman glares at him. ‘Your man is a psycho,’ protests Danny, gesturing towards the door. ‘Dunno what got into him.’

The barman looks sceptical. ‘What do you want?’ he asks, pulling pints for the customers who are averting their gaze from Danny.

‘A taxi,’ he says. ‘As soon as possible.’

The barman nods. ‘Where to?’ he asks, reaching for the phone on the wall behind him.

Danny smiles. ‘No offence, but in the circumstances, I think I’ll keep that for the taxi-man.’ And he goes back to finish his pint.

‘Five minutes,’ the barman says curtly. ‘Out that way,’ and he nods in the direction of the Gents. ‘I’ll let you out when the taxi’s here.’

‘Thank you,’ says Danny, politely. He sits down and finishes his pint. A job well done, he thinks. A satisfying project overall.

Just one more thing and then he’ll be on his way.

 

11

‘THANKS FOR seeing us at such short notice, Jennifer,’ Robert said.

‘Not a problem. Come in. All of you.’

They sat, clustered around the desk in Jennifer’s overheated office.

‘Right.’ Jennifer adjusted her glasses and addressed herself to Ciarán. ‘What age are you, Ciarán?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘We can conduct this interview, just the two of us, if you’d prefer. Do you object to your parents being present?’

He shook his head. ‘No. They can stay. It’s fine.’ He was agitated, pulling at his fingernails. Lynda winced as he made one of them bleed.

‘Your father has given me the broad outline of the other night. It seems that a young woman,’ she leafed through pages on her desk, ‘called Larissa, is that right?’

Ciarán nodded.

‘Larissa seems to have made an allegation of rape against you and you have been asked to appear voluntarily at the Garda station and give your own statement. Do you understand?’

Again, Ciarán nodded.

Jennifer took off her glasses. ‘A voluntary statement means that you are not being arrested. You will be there of your own free will. You may leave any time. Is that clear?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ciarán. ‘It’s clear.’

‘What happens in these cases is that the young woman, Larissa, will be required to go to the Sexual Assault Unit at the Rotunda, and submit to an examination.’

‘I don’t—’ Ciarán began.

‘Just a moment,’ said Jennifer, quickly. ‘Don’t say anything until you hear me out.’

Ciarán looked at her. His mouth was slightly open. At that moment, Lynda was filled with fear for him. He was so confused, so vulnerable, that he might admit to anything. She hoped that Jennifer could see that.

‘If you admit the rape, you will be cautioned and detained for further questioning. I understand from your father that you deny the allegation, is that correct?’

‘I don’t remember,’ Ciarán whispered. ‘I just . . .’

‘In that case,’ said Jennifer briskly, ‘I will be advising you to say nothing. And that means what the word says. When asked, you will reply “I have nothing to say”. Is that clear?’

‘Yeah, but Jon . . .’

Jennifer leaned towards him. ‘I don’t need to hear any more, Ciarán. The Guards have already taken away bedding for forensic examination. That may, or may not tell them something.’ The phone rang, making Lynda jump. ‘Five minutes,’ said Jennifer picking up the receiver and speaking briskly into it. She turned back to Ciarán. ‘I will meet you outside the station at five-thirty this evening. Do exactly what I tell you and we’ll be out again in half an hour. If things proceed, then we will have a further, much lengthier conversation. For now, it’s enough that you understand to say nothing at all when questioned.’

‘May I ask something?’ said Lynda.

‘Sure. Fire ahead.’

‘This girl, Larissa.’ Lynda paused. ‘If she doesn’t proceed with her allegation, I mean, if she refuses to go to the Rotunda or whatever, what then?’

‘Then there will be no case against Ciarán.’

‘What if the bedding . . .’ Lynda trailed off. What an appalling thing, she thought. Poor Larissa. She had to speak to her again. The girl had been right: nobody was going to be punished for this. Except, she thought, looking at her son’s distraught face, except those who are innocent.

‘One thing at a time,’ said Jennifer. ‘Let’s get today over with, and then we’ll see where we are.’ She stood up.

Lynda felt a flash of anger. We’re just a job to her, she thought. A case. A file. A fee. She stood and took her handbag off the floor. She left it to Robert to thank the woman. All she wanted was to get out of there.

The minute Lynda put her key in the lock, she knew something was wrong. The alarm wasn’t working. The air in the house felt disturbed. The kitchen door was creaking back and forth, as though in a draught.

‘What’s up?’ Robert was directly behind her.

‘Somebody’s been here. The alarm is off.’

‘Jesus!’ said Robert. ‘Is there no end to this?’ He was angry; had been angry ever since they’d left the solicitor’s office. The journey home had been a silent one. He pushed Lynda to one side and made his way into the kitchen. ‘There’s a window broken here,’ he called back, ‘in the downstairs bathroom.’

But Lynda didn’t answer. Automatically, she had stepped into her studio. Where she always went as soon as she came through the door. Her space. Her haven.

‘Mum?’ Katie was right behind her.

Lynda couldn’t speak. The whole studio seemed alive with colour. Paintings fluttered on the walls. Brightly coloured confetti littered the floor. Her desk was a tumble of blues and greens and greys. At first, the whole impact was one of curious, chaotic beauty. Then, as things began to settle, Lynda cried out. ‘Oh, my God! My God! Robert! Robert!’

He came crashing in behind them. Katie seemed to have been struck dumb. She clutched her mother’s hand and stared around her, her eyes wide and unblinking. Ciarán leaned against the door frame. Robert pushed him, roughly, out of the way.

‘Jesus,’ he said. And ‘Jesus,’ again. He held Lynda’s other hand and together, they looked at the destruction all around them. Katie pulled herself away and began to pick up the pieces off the floor. ‘Mum,’ she said, lifting her eyes to Lynda, the full impact sinking in. ‘They’re your paintings.’ Her voice was barely audible.

‘Upstairs,’ Lynda heard Robert mutter. ‘Upstairs.’ And he fled.

Lynda turned away and walked into the kitchen. She stood in front of the double doors and looked out at her garden. It was as she had left it, weeks back. Bare, sad. Waiting to be fixed. She walked over to the sink and filled the kettle. Then she sat at the table and waited.

She heard Robert and Ciarán and Katie moving about upstairs. Everything else was curiously quiet.

Later, when they gathered around her, she said: ‘Well?’

Robert sat. ‘Pretty much everything has been destroyed,’ he said. His voice was matter of fact. ‘Mattresses slashed, stuff broken, drawers upended. And nothing in my office works. It’s been trashed, too.’

‘Ciarán?’

‘Yeah. My room’s in bits,’ he said. ‘Everything’s a mess.’

Katie looked grey. Lynda had never seen her this upset without tears, before. ‘They left my dolls and teddies and stuff alone,’ she said. ‘The rest is pretty badly damaged, though.’

Lynda stood. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Call the Guards. In the meantime, let’s photograph everything for the insurance. Once the police go, we start the clean up.’

Robert looked at her. ‘Now? Today?’

She lifted her chin. ‘Why not? Any other way, he wins. Danny wins. Do you want that?’

Robert didn’t answer. Instead, he said: ‘I’d better call someone straight away to fix the bathroom window. And the alarm. It’s Friday afternoon.’ He pulled the mobile out of his pocket. ‘Katie – use the house phone to call the police.’ He turned to Ciarán. ‘Go and have a shower. Get out of those clothes and put on something decent for your interview this afternoon.’

Ciarán left, without a word.

‘I’m going into my studio,’ Lynda said. ‘And then I’m going out to my garden.’

When Robert and Ciarán got back at six-thirty, Katie and Lynda had the studio cleared. Katie had wept her way through it.

‘It’s okay, love, please don’t be so upset.’ Lynda looked at her daughter. ‘These are things. They can be replaced. The four of us are safe. That’s what matters.’ They both looked up as they heard Robert’s step in the hall.

‘Well?’ asked Robert as he came through the door of the studio. ‘What did the cops say?’

‘Oh, you know,’ said Lynda, ‘the usual.’ She stood up from where she’d been kneeling on the floor and wiped her hands in a towel. Spatters of paint clung to her fingers. ‘They took fingerprints and photographs and looked around a good bit.’ She shrugged. ‘They were very nice, but a bit useless, really. I mean, what can they do? I’m just ticking the boxes for the insurance, that’s all. We know who did this.’

Katie stifled a sob. Lynda looked from Ciarán to Robert, feeling suddenly afraid. ‘What’s your news?’

‘Larissa didn’t turn up to go to the Rotunda,’ Robert said. He sounded almost breathless. ‘And without her, there’s no case to answer. She gave a false address.’ He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t look like there’s much the cops can do about it.’ He looked exhausted.

‘Is that it, then?’ asked Lynda, hardly daring to hope.

Ciarán nodded. His face looked raw again, as though he had been crying. ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘I think it’s over.’

‘You,’ said Lynda quietly, ‘are only just beginning, Ciarán. Your new life starts now – and it will be absolutely nothing like the old one, I can promise you that.’

Ciarán looked uncomfortable. ‘I know I have to do things better,’ he said. ‘I want to. And I’m sorry about all of this.’

Lynda nodded. ‘We all are. And Jon may well not be finished with us yet. But you – you have a lot to make up for.’

There was a silence. Ciarán shifted from foot to foot.

‘I’m staying for the next few weeks, here, at home,’ said Katie, suddenly.

‘What about college?’ asked Robert.

‘There’s only a couple of weeks of term left,’ said Katie. ‘We finish at the start of April. I’ll talk to my tutor. I need to be here. I want to help sort this . . . this . . . wreckage.’

‘We’ll talk about that later,’ said Lynda.

Katie shook her head. ‘My mind’s already made up.’

Lynda’s mobile rang. She pulled it towards her, flipped open the cover. ‘Where?’ she said. She could feel the others looking at her. ‘Give me ten minutes.’ She threw the phone into her handbag.

‘What?’ asked Robert. He looked fearful. ‘What now?’

‘Larissa. I gave her my mobile number. Told her to call if she needed anything. Let’s go, Robert. I want you with me.’

When they entered the cafe, Larissa looked startled. She stared at Robert, then looked quickly back at Lynda. She’s still terrified, Lynda thought, poor kid. She couldn’t help thinking that this could be Katie, in another life. The thought made her shiver. The girl’s face was white, the eyes dark and vulnerable.

‘This is my husband, Robert,’ said Lynda. ‘Robert, this is Larissa.’

Robert nodded and sat opposite her. ‘Hello, Larissa.’

Lynda pulled out a chair and sat beside her. Larissa couldn’t take her eyes off Robert. ‘I’m glad you called us,’ Lynda said. She touched the girl’s hand, gently. But Larissa flinched and drew back. Lynda paused for a moment. ‘We want to help you, Larissa. I promise you we’ll do everything we can to—’

‘The other man,’ interrupted Larissa. Her voice sounded harsh, on the verge of cracking. She spoke directly to Robert. ‘The one he look like you? He give me this yesterday.’ She pulled an envelope out of her bag. Her hands were trembling.

Danny, thought Lynda. He’s got to her. What has he done to her? Robert leaned forward. ‘Another man? A man who looked like me?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She bit her lip. ‘He say he is your husband.’ She glanced at Lynda. Her eyes were cautious now, wary. She looked as if she might bolt from her chair at any moment.

‘My brother,’ said Robert. ‘I am sorry to say that that was my brother. He was lying to you.’

Larissa looked at Lynda now, confused. ‘I do not understand.’

‘He is a bad man,’ said Lynda. ‘A man who has caused us a great deal of trouble.’ And you, she thought. He’s caused you more trouble than any of us.

‘Did he do anything to you – hurt you in any way?’ asked Robert. ‘You can trust us, Larissa. We want to help you.’

Larissa looked from one to the other. Her eyes began to fill. ‘He frighten me,’ she said. She pushed the envelope towards Lynda. ‘I do not want this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Money,’ said Larissa. ‘He give me money to tell police about your son.’

Lynda shook her head. ‘Not our son, Larissa. The blond boy who attacked you was not our son.’

Larissa looked startled. ‘Then—’

‘Our son,’ said Robert, ‘was the drunk and noisy one sitting downstairs.’

‘He is your son?’

Robert nodded, tiredly. ‘Yes. And just to complete the circle, “Golden Boy”, the one who hurt you, is the son of the man who gave you that money. They are as bad as the other, father and son, and I am so sorry they’ve made you suffer.’

Larissa blinked. Then her face sagged and she began to weep. Lynda put one arm around her shoulders. This time, Larissa did not move away.

Robert stood up. ‘Let me get you something – water, tea, coffee?’

She nodded, sobbing. ‘Water, please.’

‘Have you eaten anything recently?’ asked Lynda.

The girl shook her head.

‘I’m sure I can find you something edible,’ Robert said and smiled at her.

‘Coffee for all of us as well,’ Lynda said. ‘I think we could do with it.’ She kept her arm around Larissa’s shoulders. The girl’s trembling had started to ease and she was crying more quietly. ‘Take your time,’ said Lynda. ‘Tell us when you’re ready.’

She nodded, wiping her eyes. When Robert returned, she was calmer. ‘Thank you,’ she said as he placed coffee and water and a sandwich in front of her. ‘You are kind. Thank you.’ Her eyes filled again. ‘I do not know what to do. He say his son must be punished, or he would do this again. I was afraid not to do as he tell me. So I go to the police. I give a statement. Then I run away.’

She began to cry again, hunched forward on the table.

‘Larissa,’ said Lynda, after a moment, ‘rape is a very serious crime. And we know who did it. We don’t know where Jon is, but we can describe him. We have a witness who saw him bring you upstairs and we both saw you running away on the night – this boy can be caught and punished.’

Larissa shook her head vehemently. ‘No. I see police do not want to believe me. I see it.’ She shrugged. ‘All the time. They do not care. They do not believe and they do not care.’ She paused. ‘No hospital, no doctor, no police.’ She looked at Robert, suddenly frightened again. ‘Please, I want to finish it. Now.’

Robert leaned towards her. ‘Nobody is going to force you to do anything, Larissa. If that is your choice, we will accept that. We’ll support you. But you must have help.’

‘What help?’ She looked guarded.

‘A doctor, first,’ said Lynda. ‘A private one – my doctor. Anything you discuss with her will be confidential. I can take you to see her.’

‘And no police?’

‘No police,’ agreed Lynda. ‘If you are sure that’s what you want. But perhaps a counsellor?’

‘What is this?’

‘Someone who can help you not to feel so afraid. Someone who will talk to you, and understand how you’re feeling.’

‘A psychiatrist?’ asked Larissa. She stumbled over the word. ‘I know what this is.’

‘Not quite,’ said Lynda. ‘But someone with special knowledge.’ She paused. ‘Are you sleeping?’

Larissa shook her head.

‘Do you feel afraid to be on your own? To go out?’

She nodded, biting her lip again.

‘Then let us help you,’ said Lynda. ‘Please. We feel partly responsible. It was in our home. And if our son hadn’t been so drunk, this might never have happened. We owe you, Larissa.’ Lynda waited, hoping the girl would say ‘yes’. She had a vision of Jon and Ciarán on that night, of Larissa, running screaming from her front door. She felt a surge of rage at Danny.

‘I will go to your doctor, yes,’ Larissa said at last. She pushed the envelope further away from her. ‘But I do not want his money. It is . . . dirty money.’ Her face filled with emotion. ‘I’m sorry to cause trouble.’

‘You didn’t,’ said Lynda at once. ‘All the trouble was caused by others. None of this is your fault. You just got caught in the net. Do you understand? We all got caught.’

‘Like fish, yes?’ asked Larissa.

‘Like fish,’ agreed Lynda. ‘But it’s over. I don’t think he’ll try again. He’s done his worst, this time.’

‘I go now.’ Larissa stood and put out her hand.

‘Are you sure?’ Lynda said. ‘We can go to the doctor now, if you like?’

Larissa shook her head. ‘Now, I must work. But tomorrow, yes?’

‘I will call you tomorrow. Are you free in the morning?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In the morning is good.’ She shook hands with Robert. ‘You are a good woman,’ she said suddenly to Lynda. ‘I trust you, when I see you last time.’

Lynda smiled at her. ‘Call me any time,’ she said. ‘And we will see each other tomorrow.’ She and Robert watched as Larissa left the cafe. Lynda handed Robert the envelope. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do with this.’

Robert put the envelope into his inside pocket. ‘We’ll find something clean to do with it.’ He reached across the table and took her hands. ‘And we’ll look after that girl, no matter what.’ He paused. ‘The awful thing is, I just keep wondering what’s next.’

‘Don’t,’ she shook her head. ‘I really don’t want to wonder.’

He stroked the back of her hand. ‘Are we okay? I mean, despite . . .’ he spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘All of it. Can’t even find the words.’

She looked at him. ‘We are okay: and we will be okay. We’ll go home, clear up the wreckage, as Katie calls it, keep Ciarán on a very short leash, and start again.’ She stopped. ‘We’re going to need some help with Ciarán. And I suspect it’s going to be a long and rocky road. He was no angel before Jon – and I don’t think that either of us took that seriously enough.’ She looked at Robert. ‘Katie says we spoiled him.’

Robert nodded. ‘Maybe we did. But that’s sure going to change.’ His voice was grim. ‘You do know that it may not be over? I mean, Danny may try again. And again. We might have to pay the price of eternal vigilance.’

‘I know that. He will try again – through Jon, or by himself, or some other way. The point is, he didn’t win, this time. And he won’t win the next time, either. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

Robert pushed back his chair. He held his hand out to Lynda. ‘I bless Charlie every day,’ he said.

Lynda looked at him, puzzled. ‘Who?’

‘The Dramsoc whirlwind? The one who introduced us?’

Lynda smiled at the memory. ‘Ah, yes, the night you cheated, running for the number ten bus.’

‘The night I won, fair and square,’ he said, indignant.

‘I think we both won, that night,’ said Lynda. ‘It just took some of us longer than others to figure that out.’

Robert smiled. He took her arm. ‘Madam, your carriage awaits.’

She walked with him across the car park. The sun was setting into a deep glow over the Wicklow mountains.

‘Would you look at the pair of us?’ Robert stopped so suddenly that Lynda ran into him.

‘What?’ She was curious to see the smile that began to flicker at the corners of his mouth.

‘As the kids would say: “What are you like?” ’ He waved his arm in the air, taking in the sky, the hills, the scene before them. ‘Walkin’ off into the sunset, at our age?’

Lynda smiled. ‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’

Robert took her hand and squeezed it.

‘Let’s go home the long way,’ she said, suddenly. ‘So that we don’t pass Emma’s roundabout. Just for tonight.’

Robert started the engine. ‘Home it is,’ he said. ‘The long way.’

And they pulled out into the traffic.

Jon is waiting for him.

It has taken Danny an hour longer than expected to make his way through the tangle of Dublin traffic. But Jon is there and this pleases him. He is sitting in a corner of the bar, his back to the door. His baseball cap is back to front, the peak shadowing the slender lines of his neck. Danny walks over and flips the cap off his son’s head. Then he stands there in shock. It takes him a minute or so to understand.

‘Like it?’ Jon turns around and grins at his father.

Danny stares at him. His hair is now dark and cropped close to his skull. Even his eyebrows are dark. Danny is caught off-balance. Jon’s build is different, of course, he is slender where Robert was always broad-shouldered and sturdy, but for a moment there, Danny caught an uncanny glimpse of Robert as a child. Something in the way Jon had cocked his head to one side reminded him too much of Pansy.

Jon’s smile fades. His green eyes are suddenly anxious. ‘It was part of the plan, Danny. It had to be done. You know, the whole “Golden Boy” thing?’

Danny starts to relax. ‘’Course,’ he agrees. ‘It was just a bit of a shocker. For a minute there, you looked a bit like your Uncle Robert. Anyway, how’s it goin’?’

‘Yeah, good,’ replies Jon. ‘Got away no problem. How about you? You find Larissa?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ says Danny, smiling now. ‘Let’s have a pint and I’ll tell you all about it.’ He orders two pints at the bar and they carry their glasses upstairs. It’s a wet, chilly night, even for March. Despite the patio heaters, there’s nobody in the Smoking Area apart from the two of them.

‘Bloody waste of money,’ the barman downstairs had grumbled. ‘I told him that. A gazebo would have done the job just as well. There’s fuck-all customers these days, anyway.’

Danny made some sympathetic noises. He’s still cautious, even this far from Dublin. Long arm of the law, and all that. Now, he and Jon walk to the far end of the Smoking Area, well out of earshot of any random passers-by. Danny looks down at the swollen waters of the River Suir. The inner arch of the bridge is illuminated and it’s reflected greenly in the hurrying currents beneath: all that water rushing against itself.

‘Cheers,’ Danny says, ironically. ‘Your very good health.’ He pulls the packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. Jon takes one and flips his lighter, leaning over to Danny. They smoke in silence for a minute or so. ‘Right,’ says Danny. ‘You go first.’

‘It was easy,’ Jon shrugs. ‘Even apart from the Larissa thing, I’d say that “Golden Boy” might have a bit of a problem with coke. And ecstasy.’ He shakes his head. ‘He’s such a wuss. I even had to show him where to buy it.’ He laughs. ‘An’ he’s one very confused bloke. By the time I left him, he didn’t know his arse from his elbow.’

Danny smiles. Shades of Pansy. Chip off the old block, and all that. Nevertheless, he, Danny, should probably show some paternal concern of his own: Jon would expect that. ‘You’re not in any trouble that way, yourself, are you?’ He allows just the right amount of anxiety to shade his question.

Jon shakes his head. ‘Nah. The odd joint, the odd tab. Nothin’ much.’ He shrugs. ‘Never had the cash. Besides, it’s weak. Not my scene.’

Danny nods. He feels oddly moved.

Jon glances over at his father again. He sounds almost shy when he speaks. ‘You were really brilliant, helping me set all that up. I mean, the bit about the blood tests, the anaemia and all that – that really sowed the seed. Yummy Mummy was right off-balance that night. Got the worry wart goin’.’ He pauses. ‘Even feel a bit sorry for her. He was the apple of her eye, an’ all that.’

Danny doesn’t want to talk about it any more. It wearies him, bores him, now that it’s all over. He’s finished what they started over twenty-five years ago. That’s enough. But he can see that the boy is yearning for a bit of praise. ‘You weren’t so bad yourself,’ he says. He makes sure his tone reeks of approval. He watches his son’s shoulders straighten, his smile broaden. ‘Looking after the sensor lights the way you did – now that was a masterstroke. Now you see it, now you don’t.’ And he grins at his son, delighted with him, with them both, with their cleverness.

Jon glows. Danny can see him savour the moment. Then, out of the blue: ‘Will they arrest him?’ His question wavers a little.

Danny looks at him, sharply. ‘Doesn’t matter. They might, they might not. I made it worth Larissa’s while, but who knows? She might not follow through.’ Larissa. She of the blonde hair and the blue eyes – and the absolutely terrified expression.

‘No, please,’ she’d said, when Danny had caught up with her in Superquinn. He’d waited until her shift was over, choosing his moment. ‘I tell your wife already,’ she’d pleaded. ‘No police! I want not the police.’

That had surprised him, right enough. Lynda must have got there before him. She always was a sharp one – way sharper than Pansy. She’d tumbled to him three years back, as well.

‘Now, listen to me,’ he’d said, taking Larissa by the arm. He’d spoken to her in soothing tones, kept the eye contact going. ‘You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to. I have a little proposal for you, that’s all. You are quite free to say “yes” or “no”. It’s your choice.’ He’d watched her face relax. ‘Come and have a drink with me. I don’t want us standing out in the street while we discuss this. Someone might think I’m way too old and ugly for such a beautiful girl.’ And he’d smiled. One of his most winning ones.

She’d looked even more nervous. But he stood in front of her, making it clear he wasn’t going to go away. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘One drink.’

He’d bought her a Smirnoff Ice; pint of the black stuff for himself. As soon as they were sitting at a quiet table in the corner, he’d pulled an envelope from his inside pocket and placed it on the upholstered seat between them. ‘There’s five hundred euro in here. It’s yours.’ And he took a good slug of his pint.

She’d looked at him. The blue eyes were terrified; she twisted the ring on her thumb round and round. He wished she’d stop. ‘What I must do?’ she asked. She was wary, now.

‘Make a statement to the Guards,’ he said. ‘The police.’ He watched as alarm washed her features. ‘No—’ she began, but he stopped her.

‘Listen carefully,’ he said. ‘You give a statement, a false address, and you go home. Nothing else. I’ll tell you what to write. And afterwards, you just disappear. Or get a friend to do it. I don’t care.’ He reached for his pint again, unconcerned.

‘But they will find me.’

He shook his head. He stood up, putting the envelope back into his pocket. ‘I don’t have time for this. In this country, there is nothing the police can do.’ He waited, let that sink in. ‘If you don’t follow it up, there is nothing they can do to you.’ He watched, could see her weakening. One last roll of the dice. ‘You make your statement, just the once.’ He tapped his pocket. ‘I’ll tell you the words, you take them down. Nothing else. Do you understand?’

She’d nodded, biting her lower lip.

‘Then, you go home. And that’s it. Five hundred euro for a few lines and your signature. Trust me. They won’t come looking for you.’ He’d said enough.

‘Why?’ she’d asked, suddenly.

‘Why what?’ he’d said, kicking to touch.

‘Why you want so much to punish your son? I do not understand.’

He’d sighed. ‘My son has been a very bad boy,’ he said. ‘He’s done this to other girls. He will do it again. As a father, I must stop him.’ He’d allowed his eyes to fill with tears, then. ‘Don’t you understand? Ciarán must be punished. “Golden Boy” or no “Golden Boy”. Do you want other girls to suffer, too?’

She’d shaken her head at that. ‘Okay. I do what you ask.’

Slowly, almost reluctantly, he’d pulled the envelope out of his pocket. ‘You’re sure? You do understand that it’s my duty?’

‘I understand.’

But Danny was thinking that she understood nothing other than an envelope with five hundred euro. He handed her the notepaper and the pen he’d brought with him. Her writing was laborious, like a child’s. He kept the statement simple, stark in its retelling of the facts.

‘I go now,’ she’d said. ‘I study this and I go now. I finish this.’

He’d nodded. ‘Yes. The sooner the better.’

And she’d left the pub, the door closing softly behind her.

‘We’ve given them enough to worry about, though, haven’t we?’ Jon is smiling at his father. ‘Even if Larissa doesn’t do the business. And I have a few other things up my sleeve. For later, when things calm down a bit. Wouldn’t do to have them think it’s all over. We’ll let them know we’re still watching.’

For the first time in his life, Danny likes the word ‘we’. It’s like being back in the fold again, his own fold. With his own son. ‘You did well,’ he says. ‘Couldn’t have done it without you.’

Jon glances over at him. ‘They had it coming,’ he says. ‘Cheating you out of everything like that.’

Danny lights another cigarette, and one for Jon. He passes it over to him. ‘Well,’ he says easily, ‘we don’t need to dwell on that now. We can put it behind us.’ He waits for what he feels is an appropriate amount of time. ‘So,’ he says, ‘you don’t regret coming looking for me, do you?’

Jon’s face is animated, his eyes shine. Not for the first time, Danny thinks what a good-looking lad he is. A real ladykiller, if ever he’s seen one. Another nice bit of symmetry, that.

‘No, of course not. It’s been great.’ Jon drags deeply on his cigarette. ‘Like I told you, I never really expected to find you.’

Danny nods, pleased. ‘Well, I’m really glad you did. We’ll have to keep our distance for a while now, just in case. You’d better stay out of Dublin; lie low for a while. And don’t go near Tina again, either.’ Seeing Jon’s anxious expression, he smiles. ‘Don’t worry. It won’t be for long. It’s just that Tom Phelan might begin nosing around, put two and two together. We need a bit of distance.’ He grinds his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘But we’ll keep in touch, of course.’

‘How long before I can come and live with you?’ asks Jon, finishing his pint.

‘You want another?’ says Danny. ‘Bird never flew on one wing.’

‘Yeah,’ says Jon. ‘I’ll go for it.’

‘Here . . .’ Danny hands him a twenty euro note. He watches his son’s long, assured stride; sees his own younger self in the boy’s easy grace. He really did come out of the wide blue yonder, Danny thinks. First, a letter from some agency, asking whether he’d agree to contact with his son. That had been a bit of a shocker, all right. It hadn’t taken him long to put two and two together, given the boy’s age. At first, he’d thought: no chance. No way. Not me. But then, he’d got to thinking. And the boy had been useful, no doubt about it. Clever, too.

He’d found Tina, as well. And through her, Amy. Jon’s keeping his options open now, about Amy. He might or he might not, he says. At least he knows where she is, who she is. And he’d been angry at her, of course. Angry at his mother’s abandonment of him. It had been easy for Danny to be sympathetic, easy to fuel that anger, bit by bit. The apparently accidental meeting with Phelan in his local pub was a brilliant bit of detective work: the boy was a natural. That meeting was something Danny would be proud of himself.

Jon returns now with the two pints. He hands Danny the change. But he waves it away. ‘Keep it.’

‘Thanks, Danny.’ His smile is electric.

They’d decided, between them, that Dad was not appropriate. Neither was Father. ‘Danny’ seemed to be an admirable compromise. A symbol of their relationship as two adults; equals. Two Dannies. They’ve stuck with ‘Jon’ for the boy, though. Less complicated that way.

‘We’d better take ourselves off after this one,’ says Danny, looking at his watch. ‘I’ve a very early start in the morning.’

Jon nods. ‘What time will you leave for the ferry?’

‘About half-three,’ Danny says. ‘That gives me five hours of a kip. Should be grand.’

‘I’ll head off soon, then,’ Jon says. ‘Oh, here – I almost forgot.’ He reaches into the inside pocket of his parka and hands his father a package. ‘Your letters. You asked me to get them back for you.’

‘Good man,’ says Danny softly. He is surprised, gratified at his son’s thoroughness. Getting the evidence back was always a long shot. ‘I’m proud of you, d’you know that?’

Jon smiles. ‘You didn’t think I’d do it, did you?’ He shakes his head. ‘You come from a family of very sound sleepers.’ He looks pleased with himself. ‘Amazin’, the things you find in the dead of night.’

The both laugh.

Danny can see his son’s reluctance to go. They have bonded well, the two of them. Isn’t that the term? Bonded. Like woodworkers’ glue. ‘I’ll call you from the port,’ Danny says. He makes his voice gentle. ‘And we’ll see each other very soon.’

Jon hesitates. ‘And then can we talk about me coming to London?’

Danny nods. ‘Of course. I’ve lots of room in my flat. We’ll work it all out over the next couple of months. Maybe even head off somewhere exotic for Christmas. Would you fancy that?’

Jon grins. ‘As long as my work here is done,’ he says. ‘Can’t leave any loose ends.’

Danny drains his pint. ‘You be careful, now. No point getting caught at this stage. And change hostels, if you stay overnight in Dublin, okay?’

‘Yeah. Will do.’ He grins. ‘Left a bit of a bill in the last place, anyway.’

Danny looks at him. ‘Not enough to catch up with you, I hope?’

Jon shrugs. ‘Nah. People aren’t very bright, are they? I mean, they keep letting you away with stuff.’

Danny doesn’t reply.

‘Even the university,’ Jon goes on. ‘No one ever checked.’

‘Don’t push it,’ Danny warns. ‘If you get cocky, they’ll nail your arse.’ He stands up. ‘Now, you go on back to the B and B. I’ll wait ten more minutes. Okay?’

Jon zips up his parka. ‘Talk tomorrow then.’ He seems about to approach Danny, then changes his mind.

‘Yeah, talk tomorrow. And well done. Sterling work.’ He says this last with a London accent and Jon laughs. Then the boy heads downstairs. Danny watches from the window as his son crosses the Suir, making his way over the illuminated bridge. He turns to the right and Danny can see him look back over his shoulder at the pub. Dungarvan was an inspired choice, Danny thinks. Its off-season quiet is perfect.

Twenty minutes later, he, too, leaves. He crosses the same bridge, but turns left instead of right. As he does so, he tosses his mobile phone into the river. Then he makes his way towards the hire car. As he walks, he reviews his work of the past few months.

Robbie. Lynda. Amy. Tom. And Ciarán, of course.

Pity about Jon. But it can’t be helped.

A man can’t be tied down. A man needs freedom. Great gulping breaths of it. Danny presses the key fob and the lights blink, obediently. He starts the engine and heads towards Rosslare. Rosslare to Fishguard.

Fishguard to God knows where.

 

Epilogue

TOM LEAVES the pub, nursing his hand. He stumbles on the kerb and passers-by look at him and then look away again. They avert their gaze quickly, as though he is something unsavoury. He knows he must appear drunk, or stoned. Angrily, he wipes away the stray tears that keep on coming and coming.

He can’t go home. He won’t go home, not until this murderous rage has had a chance to settle. He has to get a grip, consider his options. If he has any left.

He wanders around the city, thinking about where his life has brought him. A sham, all of it. A fuckin’ sham. A job that didn’t want him. A wife that doesn’t want him. And all of those stupid dreams about a fishing boat on Lough Conn. Who was he kiddin’. He has no one to go fishin’ with, even if he could afford a boat. Wide Boy has screwed him nicely. Screwed all of them, as it turns out. Robert. Lynda. Him.

Amy.

And Amy has a son. Tom doesn’t doubt it, not for a moment. All Wide Boy has done is confirm suspicions he’s already had himself, suspicions he wouldn’t even have known how to voice, because he didn’t know what they were. Then it hits him. If she’s had a baby, then the problem, the fault between them, is his. Jesus. He starts to cry in earnest, sitting on the kerb outside McDonald’s. He sits there, not even trying to wipe his eyes. At midnight, a Guard approaches and tells him to go home.

‘I don’t have one,’ he says. But he stands up anyway, and shuffles off.

By the time he reaches the house, his knees are killing him. He knows they are, because they won’t move properly. But he can’t feel them, can’t feel anything any more.

Amy opens the door to him. ‘What’s happened?’ she cries. Her hair is tied up again, he notices, in that Amy Winehouse kind of way. It doesn’t matter any more. She isn’t real, nothing is real between them and never has been. That’s where his life has brought him.

He pushes past her and makes his way into the living room. It seems to have changed since this morning. There’s nothing here that is familiar. It looks suddenly bare and grim, like your woman’s garden after he’d wrecked it. He feels sorry for that now. And the paintings. It seems such a waste.

‘Tom, what’s wrong?’ Amy’s voice is catching on something. It might be a sob, but he doesn’t care any more. The kid gloves haven’t worked. Staying schtum hasn’t worked. All the love in the world hasn’t worked. He’s lost her, anyway. She belongs to Wide Boy.

‘I’ve been worried sick. I called your mobile and then the restaurant, maybe a dozen times. What is it?’ She stands in front of him, pulling at something on the sleeve of her cardigan.

Tom doesn’t look at her. He sinks into the sofa and says nothing.

She comes around to stand in front of him. ‘Tom?’ she says. Her tone is frightened now. She has never seen him like this. Her face has an odd look to it.

‘Why didn’t you tell me,’ he says. It is not a question.

‘Tell you what,’ she answers, but there is a tremor to her voice. A dead giveaway, in his experience.

He fixes his gaze on a point above the fireplace. The focus gives him a sort of control. ‘That you have a son.’

She crumples. Her knees give way and she stumbles into the armchair just across from him. He notices that the crumbs have been cleaned from the carpet. The fireplace is swept, the brass polished. He almost laughs. Ironic. All done, all cared for when it no longer matters. Funny the things that catch your eye as your life falls away from you.

Don’t insult me now, he pleads silently. Don’t deny it. Just tell me the truth for once.

‘I couldn’t.’ That’s all she says. Amy looks down at her hands.

It’s the truth, perhaps. Tom is stunned by the simplicity of it. Somehow, her admission makes his rage leach away and he is left with nothing but peace. This is what he has felt between them for all these years. This has been the obstruction. This, and the other child: the one he hasn’t been able to give her. Now, at least, it has been named and naming it has stolen some of its power.

‘Danny Graham,’ he says. ‘I understand he’s the father.’

She looks at her husband, her eyes wide and horrified. ‘How do you know? Who told you that?’ she begins to rise from the chair.

‘Sit down,’ he says, more sharply than he has intended. Then, ‘Sit down,’ more gently this time. ‘I’ve met him. Worked for him. Although I didn’t know who he was – really who he was – until tonight.’ He sits forward on the sofa, his shoulders hunched, hands clasped in front of him. The knuckles show shiny white under the skin. They remind him of the punch he landed on that animal’s face. There is at least some satisfaction in that.

‘What sort of work?’ asks Amy. Her hands have begun to tremble. ‘What did you do for him?’

‘You don’t need to know,’ he says, ‘it’s nothing you need to know. Just some half-assed surveillance. Except that the real purpose of it was to destroy everyone he’s ever known.’

Amy laughs. The sound is bitter. ‘That’s Danny all right. How did he find you to help him do it?’

He shrugs. ‘It seemed to be a random meeting in the pub. But knowing him as I do now, I don’t think there was anything at all random about it. He targeted me. Targeted you. He can’t have been working alone.’

‘Where is he now?’ Amy looks around her. The terror in her eyes says that she expects him to burst through the door any minute.

‘Gone, I’d say. Out of the country. Things might start to get a bit hot for him if he stays. That’s all I’m going to tell you. It’s best you don’t know any more than you already do.’

He allows the silence to grow between them. It sits there, like a dog on a fireside rug.

‘At first,’ she says, as though answering the question he hasn’t repeated, ‘I was ashamed. They were different days, back then. My parents would have disowned me.’ She pauses. ‘They didn’t have a lot of charity in them. A lot of religion, but not a lot of charity. I left Danny when I knew I was pregnant.’ She shakes her head at the memory. ‘After our last few months together, I knew that I couldn’t bring up a child with him, not with him.’ Her look is pleading. But he isn’t able to respond to her, not yet. When he doesn’t, she continues, her voice flat. ‘I gave the baby up for adoption. Tina helped me.’

He looks up. ‘And your parents?’

‘They never knew. Tina and I manufactured a story between us. I pretended I’d got this great job in London. We had all sorts of celebrations. Instead, I went back to Tina and Jack’s house in Waterford and hid. Jack was great. He and Tina wanted to adopt my little boy, but I wouldn’t let them.’

‘Why not?’ he wants to know.

She shrugs. ‘Too much of a reminder. If I couldn’t be a mother, I didn’t want to be just an aunt. And pretend for the rest of my life. I thought a clean break would be better for all of us. In the end, they agreed.’

‘Why did you marry me?’

She looks surprised. ‘You were good to me; kind and generous. You came along at just the right time. I thought you’d help me recover, that we’d have our own family and I could forget.’ She winced. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry about everything. I was selfish. All I was doing was trying to survive.’

‘Did you love him?’

She smiles, looks at him directly. ‘What does a nineteen-year-old girl know about love? I was blown away by him, infatuated. He swept me off my feet. It didn’t last, though.’

‘Why not?’ He feels this compulsion to know the things that cause the most pain.

‘He was a bully,’ she says, simply. ‘Oh, not physically. But he had me wrapped around his little finger.’ She laughs, shortly. ‘A counsellor told me he was a master manipulator. She was right. I’d have done anything for him. But he never wanted a relationship. I knew that once he got fed up with me, he’d be ready to move on.’

‘Did he know about your son?’

She shakes her head, emphatically. ‘Absolutely not. I left the day I had the pregnancy test and I never saw him again.’ She stands up and searches the shelf behind her for cigarettes. She smokes only rarely, now. Her and Tina used to be like trains, he remembers, the pair of them. Puffin’ away like there was no tomorrow. She lights up and continues speaking, this time without looking at him. ‘To be honest, I kind of fell apart after the birth. I had a spell in hospital, with post-natal depression. Tina looked after everything for me, the adoption, everything. I never even wanted to hold my son. Some mother I’d have made.’

Her face is like steel.

‘Danny told me once that he would make everyone pay who had ever hurt him. He was talking about his family at the time. That even if he had to wait thirty years, forty years, he’d pay them all back for what they did to him. And the truth is, they did nothing to him. He did it all to himself.’ She tips her ash into the ashtray. ‘I guess he included me in that, too.’

Tom sits quietly. ‘I’m tired,’ he says.

She nods. ‘I never meant to hurt you, Tom . . .’ She stops, sighs. ‘I hate that line. It’s what Danny used to say, over and over, before he went out and did exactly the same thing all over again. It sounds like an excuse. But I mean it, I really do.’ She stubs her cigarette out. ‘I’m glad it’s out in the open. Relieved. It’s really strange, but the longer it went on, the harder the secret was to keep.’ She looks at him. ‘I wanted to tell you, Tom, but the way . . . the way things turned out between us, I couldn’t. I just didn’t know how to.’ She stands up. ‘I’ll go, tomorrow. Maybe in a few months, we can meet up and sort out what we’re going to do. When we’ve had time to think.’

He nods. ‘Where will you go?’

She smiles. ‘Where I always go. To my sister.’ She stands, rubs her hands on her jeans, an old, old gesture. ‘I’ll sleep in the spare room tonight.’ She makes her way towards the door.

It’s for the best, he thinks. Too much water under the bridge. Suddenly, he has an image of a garden, a woman, a tortoise set in stone. Himself with a crowbar, taking things apart. The bleakness of it takes his breath away. ‘Wait,’ he says.

Amy turns. ‘Yes?’

He can hardly believe what he’s saying. But he means it. Oh yes, he means it. And he means it despite – or perhaps because of – Wide Boy. ‘I don’t want you to leave. If you leave, he wins. And all of this’ – he gestures around him – ‘has been for nothing, has meant nothing, ever.’

She looks at him. Her voice is incredulous: ‘You want me to stay?’

He pauses. ‘Let’s just say that I don’t want you to go. It’s a bit different. What I really want is that he doesn’t win. I don’t want him to win. And I don’t want to live on my own, that’s the truth of it. I’m fifty-five years of age, Amy. I want a bit of peace.’

He watches as her eyes begin to fill. ‘Maybe we’re no great catch, either of us. But I still love you, Amy. And somewhere, I think you might like me enough to keep going. I’m tired of seeing things destroyed.’

She walks back towards him. Her eyes search his face. She’s weeping now. ‘Tom, I do love you,’ she says, sobs catching at the words and then letting them go. ‘I love you and I want to stay. I do.’ She pushes his greying hair back from his forehead. ‘Do you really think we can do it?’

He puts his arms around her and holds onto her. Holds on for dear life. ‘I don’t know.’ Then, ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes.’

She buries her face in his neck. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers. ‘You are a good man.’

Outside their window, there are shouts all along the street. Car engines rev into life. Partygoers call out to each other. There is laughter, cat-calling. All the sounds of the inner city. The watcher listens.

Tom listens.

He’s home. Amy’s all he’s ever wanted.

He’s home.

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks, as ever, to Shirley Stewart of the Shirley Stewart Literary Agency, for more than I can say.

To my wonderful editor, Trisha Jackson, and all the team at Macmillan: Eli Dryden, Ellen Wood, Kati Nicholl, Clare Stacey at Head Design, and Imogen Taylor.

Thanks to the winning combination – in all senses – of Davy Adamson and Cormac Kinsella, and to Michelle Taylor and Katie James.

And thanks, too, to Roddy Doyle, for so many things over the years, including the patient reading of manuscripts.

 

A letter from the author

Dear Reader,

I have always been drawn to the same themes: the complexity of family and the deep ties of friendship. I think that friendship has sustained me, more than anything else, down through the years.

When I imagined Lynda, and the challenges she was going to face in the course of the novel, I deliberately isolated her from any friends she might have. I wanted her solitariness to increase, so that the aura of menace that Danny brought with him became all the more potent. She was drawn further and further into the web of her husband’s past. Struggle all she might, Lynda was unable to escape until the past was fully confronted and exorcised.

I really like to write about this theatre of the family: the drama, the conflict, the scenes of love and betrayal. I find it fascinating, for instance, to hear members of the same family discussing an event in their past: either a moment of celebration or one of crisis. Memories vary so much that I’ve often wondered whether people are recalling the same event, the same siblings, the same parents.

And in many ways, they are not: psychologists believe that each child – just like Robert, Danny and Emma – has ‘different’ parents – because things cannot stay the same when the family dynamic changes. I wanted to explore that dynamic in Set in Stone. I also wanted to see what happens when the natural disparity in people’s memories becomes transformed into something more sinister.

For example, there is one significant event around Emma – this is the catalyst that breaks the family apart. Danny, however, reinterprets – or ‘re-remembers’ – that event in order to suit his own purposes. With Danny – and with Robert, in a different way – I wanted to look at how denial can become a destructive force in our closest relationships.

But above all, the Grahams are an ordinary family. An ‘ordinary’ family in an ‘ordinary’ setting: but one driven by extraordinary events to learn to understand themselves, and each other, better.

I hope you enjoyed it.

 

Discussion Points for Book Clubs

SECRETS

*  Set in Stone shows how secrets can affect a family and its internal relationships, whether it’s between wife and husband or between children and their parents.

*  How does Lynda’s affair with Ken affect her relationship with Robert and her two children? Although it has never been spoken about, how do family members know about the affair? At what point does this unspoken secret of the past resurface?

*  Is it clear why Robert keeps his ailing business a secret from Lynda? Psychologists often say that more relationships break up over money than they do as a result of infidelity, particularly when one partner’s recklessness is responsible for the debts accrued. Why is this a common occurrence in relationships? Is there ever any situation where a secret from a partner is acceptable?

*  Finally, Lynda struggles with the teenage Ciarán’s need for secrecy. Where should a parent draw the line over children’s need for privacy as they grow older? What if you suspect your child is in trouble of some form? Is safety always the priority or is earning their trust equally important?

*  It is interesting to note that Lynda does not have any friends to confide in about her fears over Danny’s return, Robert’s distance or Ciarán’s misbehaviour.

REINVENTING ONESELF

*  Lynda has reinvented herself – leaving the safety of a teaching career to branch out on her own and go into garden and jewellery design.

*  Is this becoming more of a phenomenon in today’s society? The impetus can be the approach of a significant birthday, a change in the home, for example children becoming adult and leaving the nest, or a more traumatic experience such as the death of a loved one or the end of a long-term relationship.

*  Jon has obviously reinvented himself in the novel too – can you understand why Lynda is so accepting of his presence in the house? Would you have done anything differently?

 

Acclaim for Set in Stone

‘Immensely readable and compelling fiction . . . Dunne manages to combine emotional intelligence with an absorbing, cleverly woven plot . . . Her legions of fans should certainly enjoy this elegantly written page-turner’

Irish Times

And for Catherine Dunne

‘From page one the reader is won over . . . Brimming with raw emotion’

Bookseller

‘Dunne’s dialogue is deft, her writing sings’

She

‘An outrageously good read’

Irish Post

‘Warm, funny, persistent, poignant and feisty . . . [Catherine Dunne] is a fine story-teller’

Irish Independent

 

CATHERINE DUNNE is the author of six previous novels (In the Beginning, A Name for Himself, The Walled Garden, Another Kind of Life, Something Like Love and At a Time Like This). She has also written about Irish immigration in An Unconsidered People. All of her work has been published to both critical and popular acclaim. The novels have struck a chord in several countries and have been translated into many languages and optioned for film. Catherine Dunne lives near Dublin.

 

ALSO BY CATHERINE DUNNE

In the Beginning

A Name for Himself

The Walled Garden

An Unconsidered People

Another Kind of Life

Something Like Love

At a Time Like This

 

First published 2009 by Macmillan

This edition published 2010 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-0-330-53288-4 PDF
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Copyright © Catherine Dunne 2009

The right of Catherine Dunne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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