Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(130)

“Course you don’t. You want to come back here every Sunday and have lovely afternoons with the rest of us, am I right? You want your nana making you a sponge cake for your birthday, just like she did for Louise, and Darren teaching you the guitar once your hands get big enough.” The words moved over her, soft and seductive, wrapping around her and pulling her in close. “You want all of us here together. Going for walks. Making the dinner. Having laughs. Don’t you?”

“Yeah. Like a proper family.”

“That’s right. And proper families look after each other. That’s what they’re for.”

Holly, like a good little Mackey, did what came naturally. She said, and it was still just a flicker of sound but with a new kind of certainty starting somewhere underneath, “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Not even your da?”

“Yeah. Not even.”

“Good girl,” Shay said, so gently and soothingly that the dark in front of me went seething red. “Good girl. You’re my best little niece, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be our special secret. Do you promise me, now?”

I thought about various ways to kill someone without leaving marks. Then, before Holly could promise, I took a breath and pushed open the door.

They made a pretty picture. Shay’s flat was clean and bare, almost barracks-tidy: worn floorboards, faded olive-green curtains, random bits of characterless furniture, nothing on the white walls. I knew from Jackie that he had been living there for sixteen years, ever since crazy old Mrs. Field died and left the place empty, but it still looked temporary. He could have packed up and gone on a couple of hours’ notice, without leaving a trace behind.

He and Holly were sitting at a little wooden table. With her books spread out in front of them, they looked like an old painting: a father and daughter in their garret, in any century you picked, absorbed together in some mysterious story. The pool of light from a tall lamp made them glow like jewels in that drab room, Holly’s gold head and her ruby-red cardigan, the deep green of Shay’s jumper and the blue-black gloss on his hair. He had put a footstool under the table, so Holly’s feet wouldn’t dangle. It looked like the newest thing in the room.

That lovely picture only lasted a split second. Then they leaped like a pair of guilty teenagers caught sharing a spliff; they were the image of each other, all panicked flash of matching blue eyes. Holly said, “We’re doing maths! Uncle Shay’s helping me.”

She was bright red and wildly obvious, which was a relief: I had been starting to think she was turning into some ice-cold superspy. I said, “Yep, you mentioned that. How’s it going?”

“OK.” She glanced quickly at Shay, but he was watching me intently, with no expression at all.

“That’s nice.” I wandered over behind them and had a leisurely look over their shoulders. “Looks like good stuff, all right. Have you said thank you to your uncle?”

“Yeah. Loads of times.”

I cocked an eyebrow at Shay, who said, “She has. Yeah.”

“Well, isn’t that rewarding to hear. I’m a big believer in good manners, me.”

Holly was almost hopping off her chair with unease. “Daddy . . .”

I said, “Holly, sweetheart, you go downstairs and finish your maths at Nana’s. If she wants to know where your uncle Shay and I are, tell her we’re having a chat and we’ll be down in a bit. OK?”

“OK.” She started putting her stuff into her schoolbag, slowly. “I won’t say anything else to her. Right?”

She could have been talking to either of us. I said, “Right. I know you won’t, love. You and me, we’ll talk later. Now go on. Scoot.”

Holly finished packing up her stuff and looked back and forth between us one more time—the tangle of shredded expressions on her face, while she tried to get her head around more than any grown adult could have handled, made me want to kneecap Shay all by itself. Then she left. She pressed her shoulder up against my side for a second, on her way past; I wanted to crush her in a bear hug, but instead I ran a hand over her soft head and gave the back of her neck a quick squeeze. We listened to her running down the stairs, light as a fairy on the thick carpet, and the rise of voices welcoming her into Ma’s.

I shut the door behind her and said, “And here I was wondering how her long division had improved so much. Isn’t that funny?”

Shay said, “She’s no eejit. She only needed a hand.”

“Oh, I know that. But you’re the man who stepped up. I think it’s important for you to hear how much I appreciate that.” I swung Holly’s chair out of the bright pool of lamplight, and out of Shay’s reach, and had a seat. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

“Thanks.”

“The way I remember it, Mrs. Field had it wallpapered with pictures of Padre Pio and stinking of clove drops. Let’s face it, anything would’ve been an improvement.”

Shay slowly eased back in his chair, in what looked like a casual sprawl, but the muscles in his shoulders were coiled like a big cat’s ready to leap. “Where’s my manners? You’ll have a drink. Whiskey, yeah?”

“And why not. Work up an appetite for the dinner.”

He tilted his chair so he could reach over to the sideboard and pull out a bottle and two tumblers. “Rocks?”