‘Da. Come here an see this.’
The young teenager pushed her dark hair to one side and pressed her face hard against the cold pane of glass to get a better angle.
‘Da!’
Her warm breath steamed the window and droplets of condensation raced each other in small rivulets down its smooth surface to collect in tear-shaped puddles on the sill below.
She shouted again, ‘Da, look! There’s some fella dragging a coffin up the middle of our street.’
Joe Fitzpatrick crossed from the kitchen doorway to stand with his daughter at the window of their small terraced house.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he muttered under his breath.
‘There’s stuff coming out of it,’ said the girl.
‘What the hell,’ exclaimed Joe, making the sign of the cross. ‘Come on you, away from the window.’
‘But what’s that? Look, it’s all the way down the road.’
‘Come away from the window,’ snapped Joe.
‘He’s stopped,’ said the girl.
Joe Fitzpatrick watched the young man lower the coffin to the ground and turn towards them, aware that he was being watched.
He stood in the middle of the street staring back at them, expressionless.
Joe grabbed his daughter by the arm and pulled her backwards out of view.
‘Is it blood, Da?’
Joe Fitzpatrick didn’t answer.
‘D’you think he saw us?’ she whispered, looking up at her father.