Himself(89)

‘He’ll be long gone by the time Brophy gets up to the house,’ Mrs Cauley agrees.

Shauna wipes her eyes. ‘Mahony will have left the house already?’

Bridget laughs. ‘He’ll be in Westport by now!’

Shauna squints across at Mrs Cauley. ‘And he’ll return with the guards?’

‘He will of course.’

‘And Jack will be arrested?’

‘He will, Shauna,’ says Mrs Cauley.

‘God willing.’ Bridget pats her arm.

Shauna stops crying and looks at them. ‘That’s all bollocks, isn’t it?’

Bridget shrugs. Mrs Cauley purses her lips.

Shauna puts down her teacup and grabs her cardigan.

‘It will be tomorrow before we’re underway, Michael.’

‘We’ll be away in just a minute now, Mrs Cauley.’ Michael Hopper manoeuvres the wheelchair into the boot. He has no clear idea where they are going, only that the Bishop himself would murder him if he knew he was taking the priest’s car. But as Bridget pointed out, with Quinn carted off to hospital with paranoia and thorn lacerations to the backside, who is to know?

‘Take us straight up to Brophy’s,’ calls out Mrs Cauley. She turns to Bridget, sitting in the back seat behind her. ‘If that fecker is up there in his slippers watching RTé then we’ll know Mahony’s got away unchecked.’ She looks out of the window. ‘Michael, will you put a bit of effort into it?’

‘I nearly have it now, Mrs Cauley,’ says Michael. He glances across the back of the car at Shauna.

Shauna scowls back at him. She has a firm grip on a hurling stick.

‘What are you doing with the hurley there, Shauna?’

‘Weapon,’ she snarls. She also has a paring knife up the sleeve of her cardigan.

Michael closes the boot and gets into the driver’s seat. ‘And why does Shauna need a weapon?’

Mrs Cauley narrows her eyes at him. ‘Self-defence. Jack Brophy killed Orla and Mary Lavelle and now he’s after Mahony.’

Michael laughs until Mrs Cauley fixes him with the glare of a gorgon.

He looks at the grim-faced women with wonder in his rheumy blue eyes.

They have clearly departed ways with the sense that they were born with. But not liking the set of their jaws or the steely glint in their eyes Michael decides the best thing would be to humour them and let Jack sort the lot of them out.

In the back seat Bridget nudges Shauna and opens her bag to let her see what’s inside: a handgun, black and gleaming.

Shauna would be no less surprised to see a cobra coiled in there. The gun has the same terrifying aspect, the same threat, not just to life but also to reality, like the arse has dropped out of normal.

‘Tell me that’s not real, Bridget.’

Bridget grins.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Let’s just say I’m moving in different kinds of circles now. What with the drugs and all.’

Shauna raises her eyebrows. ‘Would you know how to use it?’

‘I would.’ Bridget looks up at her. ‘I most certainly would.’





Chapter 55


May 1976


Mahony slows his stride. The f*cker’s here now. It won’t do him any good to be scuttling away like a coward.

He has to keep the head.

He spits, finds a fag in his pocket and lights it. He looks up at the sky, willing himself to stop shaking and wondering if he can trust either God or his own legs in any of this.

He says a prayer anyway and saunters round to the front of the house as if he hasn’t a care in the world.

Jack is leaning on the bonnet of the Eldorado in his uniform. He doesn’t look like a murderer. He looks like a calm, reliable guard. He nods to Mahony, and the dead collie, nosing down the drive, snarls gently.

‘You’re in a fair bit of trouble, son. Theft of a motor vehicle, hit-and-run.’ He smiles. ‘On a priest no less.’

The dead collie weaves to Jack’s side and glowers up at Mahony with its one dim eye.

Mahony takes a drag on his cigarette just while he works out where the f*ck he should aim. He doesn’t fancy his chances. The dead woman in the pantry is testimony to this man’s temper. Plus, Jack has the height advantage, to say nothing of his weight there. For an older man he’s in good shape. Under that uniform the fella is solid.

It will have to be a surprise attack. Mahony has a knife in his back pocket and a pair of fists. There’s gravel at his feet and stone ornaments in the flowerbed. He can see them: there’s a toad, a rabbit and a disrobing nymph.

‘I came to turn meself in. Will you bring me down to the station?’ Mahony nods over at the squad car.

Jack, still smiling, looks Mahony up and down, like he’s measuring his arse for plastic sheeting.

‘Come round the back now until I get the keys for the station,’ says Jack.

So you can whack me on the patio and hose it down after, says the depth of Mahony’s mind, the self-preservation division.

What is really starting to get to Mahony is the thought of ending up in a bucket next to the Widow Farelly. Open-eyed, bollock naked and violated in all sorts of ways, with his boots on newspaper and his knickers folded up.

No f*cking way.

‘Lead the way, Squire,’ Mahony says.