The next day passed in a haze. Jessie made coffee, cut sandwiches and scooped ice cream. She served almond croissants, apple turnovers and pains au chocolat. Thankfully, Sundays were busy. The customers provided a welcome distraction.
It had been after midnight by the time Simon and Lorna returned. Her sister had been giddy, her teeth stained with red wine. Simon had been his usual brusque self. Jessie cycled home and spent the night staring at the ceiling, her mind refusing to shut down.
Ashling, her colleague in the Seashell, noticed that something was wrong. ‘What’s up with you?’ she asked, when they had a quiet moment. ‘You’re a right mope. Seriously, a lame donkey would be faster. And you keep giving people the wrong change. They’ll think you’re doing it deliberately, you know.’
‘Sorry, Ash.’ Then, to deflect attention from herself, Jessie added, ‘I’m glad you all had a good night.’
‘Ah, it was brilliant. The best ever.’ This was the cue Ashling had needed to revisit her favourite subject.
Jessie was happy to let her rattle on. Talk to me about mindless things, she thought. Tell me again how great the match was, and how Ger had a decent game, but how your boyfriend scored 1–5 and was the man of the match. Talk to me about the crowd and the drinks afterwards, and how the next game will be a stiffer challenge. Talk to me about anything you like.
Ashling’s impenetrable positivity, occasionally a source of irritation, helped Jessie to get through the day. When closing time came, her dilemma returned. Suppose she’d inflated what she’d seen? Suppose she’d made a mistake?
But she hadn’t.
What to do? What to do?
She sat on a bench, lit a cigarette, blew smoke rings and watched them dissolve. She could, she supposed, do nothing. Or she could tackle Lorna. Or she could ask Ger for advice. His judgement was sound. Even if his suspicions about Dave had been inaccurate, they were probably closer to the truth than hers. The drawback was this: Ger wasn’t just the shrewdest person she knew, he was also one of the straightest.
She smoked another cigarette. All the while, she turned the dilemma around in her head.
What to do? What to do?
In the end, she decided to call him. Thankfully, by the time she did, Rosemary had already gone back to Cork. Ger, who was about to leave his parents’ house, was perplexed by Jessie’s refusal to talk on the phone.
‘It’s not about Bridget or Kaitlin or any of that stuff,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain when I see you.’
Before she could change her mind again, she hung up.
‘How many plants are we talking about?’ said Ger, as they walked past the new holiday homes, an arc of lemon-coloured semi-ds, and headed towards the cliffs that bordered one side of the beach. ‘Like, would you say it was a professional set-up?’
‘Unless my sister has a top-secret life as a stoner, we’re not talking about personal use. I didn’t examine them too closely, but there were hundreds of them. Some looked ready for harvesting. Others were fairly young.’
‘And you’re absolutely certain it was cannabis?’
‘You mean, is there a chance I stumbled across a hidden grow-house of geraniums?’
‘I was only asking.’
‘Sorry,’ said Jessie. ‘I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this, but, yes, it was definitely cannabis.’
‘Did you look at the other sheds?’
‘I was going to, only by then I was kind of spooked. It’s very dark out there. I saw a bat and nearly lost my life. You should have seen the state of me.’ She gave a nervous laugh. ‘It’s a perfect spot for hiding away. The only way in is via Lorna and Simon’s house, which, as you know, is down a lane. On the other side, there’s nothing but boggy fields. So, going back to your question, I assume that if I’d looked in the other buildings, I’d have seen more of the same.’
‘You didn’t say anything to them?’
‘God, no. She was half jarred, and he was in bad form. I got out of there as quickly as I could. I mean, obviously I was shocked, but at the same time part of me was going, Well, is it any big deal? Lorna’s not exactly Pablo Escobar. And, let’s face it, I’ve smoked a fair bit of weed myself over the years.’
‘No doubt you have. Most of the town has. That doesn’t change the fact that what they’re doing is illegal. If they’re growing cannabis, they’re probably working for a larger operation.’
Jessie, who was clumsy with tiredness, didn’t reply. She hoped he wasn’t going to get self-righteous. It wasn’t as if she was at peace with what her sister was doing. She wished she could unsee the plants, the lights and the convoluted watering system. But she couldn’t. The thing was, and Ger was smart enough to realise this, getting sanctimonious wouldn’t make the problem disappear.
She stopped and sat down on a rock. He sat on the ground across from her. Over his shoulder, Clooneven twinkled in the dusk.
‘At least this gives us the definitive answer to one question,’ he said.
‘What Dave has been doing around here?’
‘Uh-huh. Only we still don’t know who he is, or how Lorna and Simon got mixed up with him.’
‘I assume he’s in charge, but what puzzles me is who looks after the day-to-day stuff. He’s not around that much, and both Lorna and Simon have businesses to run. Besides, I can’t see Lorna in her Valentino heels wiring up the sheds or harvesting the plants.’
Ger scratched his neck. ‘Do you reckon Zoë was telling the truth when she said there were “people out the back”?’
‘On balance, I do. You probably know more about four-year-olds than me, but she’s such an honest little thing. She only changed her story when Ethan gave her the big-brother stare.’
For five minutes or more, he said nothing. With anyone else, Jessie would have worried that they’d lost interest. With Ger, she was confident he was thinking it through. She looked down at the ocean, at its relentless ebb and flow. It had been the same in Bridget’s time and would continue long after she was gone. Lapping the shore and retreating. Lapping and retreating. She allowed her mind to wander.
If she was curious about why her sister would get involved in something like this, she was also angry. Her own screw-ups had been met by endless smugness and countless lectures, yet Lorna and Simon had been growing – and selling – drugs. Meanwhile, they’d also been honing their image as upstanding members of the community. They’d been running businesses, donating to the Tidy Towns Committee and attending GAA matches. As far as their neighbours were concerned, they were as wholesome as a First Holy Communion.
She was about to say something to hurry Ger along when he stood up and wiped the dust from his jeans.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I reckon we should go and have another look.’
‘You’re not serious?’ she replied, but he was already pacing back towards the car.
He parked down a lane on the far side of Clevedon. From there, they could walk across the fields to the old farm buildings. Having spent the spring cycling the local boreens, Jessie was able to gauge where they were. The sheds were a kilometre or so to the east, while Etty’s house was about two kilometres to the south.
It was almost dark, the sky dotted with stars. They used their phones for light, causing swarms of midges to rise up and billow around them.
‘What if Simon and Lorna see us?’ she asked.
‘With any luck, they won’t,’ said Ger. ‘But, if they do, they’ve more to worry about than us.’
The land was pitted with holes and clumps of reeds. Once or twice, Jessie stumbled.
A high repetitive sound, like a squeaky wheel, crashed through the silence.
‘Jesus, what’s that?’ she said.
‘A snipe. There’s a share of them around here.’
Her nervous laugh returned. ‘Thanks. And before you say it, I’ve definitely spent too long in Dublin.’
Ger strode on, his walk as purposeful as was possible on such miserable land. Jessie was beginning to fear they’d lost their way when she saw pinpoints of light in the gloom.
‘That’s Clevedon,’ she whispered. ‘And look. The dark outlines over there? Those are the sheds.’
‘We should probably switch the torches off, so,’ he said. ‘To be on the safe side.’
‘What if we tumble into a ditch or something?’
‘We’ll have to be careful.’
They walked on, but more slowly. Jessie’s breath came in quick puffs. She told herself not to be ridiculous. She’d been less scared the night before when she’d been on her own. Approaching the buildings from this side, she noticed that some of the ground had been cleared. You could park a van here. There was no sign of a vehicle, nor could they hear anything. She got the sense that light was coming from the middle building. She remembered reading that, at various points of the process, cannabis plants required near-constant light.
As they moved closer, she saw a bright crack where one of the windows hadn’t been fully boarded up. Ger spotted it too, and tipped his head in that direction. Without saying anything, they took another few steps. She heard whirring, but nothing to indicate that anyone was inside.
They glanced at each other. ‘All right?’ he whispered.
‘All right.’
Again, the door didn’t appear to be locked. Ger reached out and eased it open.
If anything, there were more plants than in the first building. Row upon row of them, tall and lush. The smell was more intense. Blinking because of the light, it took her a moment to see the woman. She was crouching at the far corner of the shed, her back towards them, her head bent over the plants, engrossed in her work.
Jessie’s instinct was to back away and leave. To her surprise, Ger stepped forward.
One step was enough for the woman to register their presence. She turned around, her body relaxed, as though she’d been expecting someone. She was young, perhaps only a teenager.
When she saw them, her mouth opened, but she said nothing.