Himself(39)

Jack curses a pothole to hell. ‘You’re still playing detective, Mahony?’

‘Did the guards get involved? Did they look for Orla?’

‘I can’t discuss that with you, Mahony.’

Mahony finds his fags and offers one to Jack. He takes it. Mahony leans forward to light it and in the brief flame sees Jack’s face, frowning.

He drives on in silence for a while. ‘They followed up on some of the concerns expressed by one of the villagers.’

In the back seat Mrs Cauley gives a deep snore.

‘What did they find?’

‘Nothing. There was nothing to find.’ Jack’s voice is kind but there’s a hardness to it that says he’ll stand no shit. ‘Your mother left this town in one piece, Mahony. She got a bus or a lift to Ennismore and then took a train. There was not a shred of evidence to suggest otherwise.’

‘A note was left with me. It says that Orla was the curse of the town so they took her from me.’

Jack takes a drag on his cigarette; the lit end of it burns and flares. ‘What’s to say she didn’t write it herself?’

‘The handwriting: it wasn’t that of an unschooled kid.’

‘Then she got someone else to write it for her.’

Mahony says nothing.

‘Look, no one took her from you, son; she left you, and that’s the truth of the matter, isn’t it?’

‘The truth of the matter is that she fought this town to keep me, only to give me away in Dublin? It doesn’t add up, Jack.’

‘The girl could hardly look after herself, let alone a baby.’ His voice softens. ‘Maybe she wanted a better life for you.’

Mrs Cauley mutters to herself in the back seat.

‘You have to ask yourself, Mahony, does this seem like the kind of place where someone could murder a young girl and then kick over all traces? A village where no one as much as farts without someone rushing to tell you about it?’

Mahony looks out of the window; he can’t see a thing. Up ahead, in the headlamps, there is only rain.





Chapter 15


May 1976


They meet in the hallway; she’s carrying Mrs Cauley’s breakfast tray, he’s coming down the stairs with wet hair and bare feet. She hasn’t time to scuttle into the library before he sees her. She curses, softly.

‘There you are then,’ he says.

There she is, standing gawking with a tray in her hands.

It’s desperate and she knows it is. She fights the urge to edge back into the kitchen or put her head down and run the length of the corridor.

Her nerves are flittered from avoiding him.

She has to say her piece. She’ll make herself say it. Here in the hallway, with Mrs Cauley’s porridge getting cold and the poached eggs slithering under her nose, there’s no better time.

‘I want to speak to you.’ She reddens. ‘About the other day, in the forest.’

He nods. His eyes are kind. There are none kinder. He smiles at her.

She can feel the heat coming off her as she roasts with mortification. She imagines herself as he sees her, with a big red face on her and her eyes blinking with confusion.

She tightens her grip on the tray. ‘Will we forget about it?’

She feels sick inside.

‘If that’s what you want.’ He’s still smiling at her, God love him.

‘No hard feelings?’ She’s nearly crying with the effort of saying it.

‘Go on with you. Give me that.’ He crosses the hall and takes hold of the breakfast tray. ‘I’ll bring this in to her Highness.’

‘Thank you, Mahony.’

‘Sure, it’s nothing at all, Shauna.’

Shauna stands over the sink for the longest time. Eventually she’ll notice that the tap needs a new washer, when she hears the drip that’s been keeping time with her. Then she’ll wipe her face, fill the kettle and put it on the hob.





Chapter 16


May 1976


It’s standing room only at St Patrick’s this morning. For throughout Mulderrig the beaks have been busy and the birds have shared a fine seed of news: that Father Quinn and Mrs Cauley are going head to head over Mahony and that Mrs Cauley will be worshipping this morning.

Mrs Cauley is as rare a sight at the church as the devil himself.

Wearing dark glasses and an emerald silk turban she takes the front pew with such an awful sort of majesty about her that more than a few members of the congregation start to regret their decision not to show up for rehearsals. Mahony sits beside her in his leather jacket with his dark hair brushed back.

The young ones nudge each other. Don’t the pair of them look glamorous? As if they have just stepped off a film set? But if Mahony notices the village girls making eyes at him he doesn’t let on, he just keeps talking low to Shauna, who sits the other side of him blushing a shade to rival her fuchsia cardigan.

‘It looks like the whole flock have turned out today then. Have you seen the sour face on Annie Farelly?’ says Mrs Cauley in a voice designed to carry.

The Widow is almost level with them across the aisle. She stares stiffly ahead with a rigid halo of curled hair and her gloved hands folded on her broad lap.

Mrs Cauley frowns. ‘Sanctimonious old bitch, there’s always been something fishy about that one. She’s in cahoots with Quinn. I’m certain they both know something.’