Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(15)

“Howyis, girls,” I said, grinning at them.

Mandy was little and dark, with a puff of fringe and a lot of stone-washed denim. She ignored me. “If he was ice cream he’d lick himself to death,” she told the others.

“I’d rather someone else did it for me,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows. The three of them screamed.

“Come here, Frankie,” Imelda called, flipping her perm. “Mandy wants to know—”

Mandy shrieked and dived to clap a hand over Imelda’s mouth. Imelda ducked away. “Mandy said to ask you—”

“Shut up, you!”

Rosie was laughing. Imelda caught Mandy’s hands and held them away. “She said to ask if your brother fancies going to the pictures and not watching the film.”

She and Rosie dissolved into giggles. Mandy clapped her hands over her face. “Imelda, you wagon! I’m scarlet!”

“So you should be,” I told her. “Cradle robbing. He’s only started shaving, do you know that?”

Rosie was doubled over. “Not him! Not Kevin!”

“She means Shay!” Imelda gasped. “Would Shay fancy going to the—” She was laughing too hard to finish. Mandy squeaked and dived back behind her hands.

“I doubt it,” I said, shaking my head ruefully. The Mackey men have never had any trouble with the ladies, but Shay was in a class of his own. By the time I was old enough for action I took it for granted, from watching him, that if you wanted a girl she came running. Rosie once said Shay only had to look at a girl and her bra snapped open. “I think our Shay might be more into the fellas, you know what I mean?”

The three of them screamed again. God but I love gangs of girls on their way out, rainbow-colored and perfect as wrapped presents; all you want to do is squeeze them and see if one of them is for you. Knowing for sure that the best one was all mine made me feel like I was Steve McQueen, like if I had a motorbike I could sweep Rosie up behind me and leap it straight over the rooftops. Mandy called, “I’m telling Shay you said that!”

Rosie caught my eye, a tiny secret glance: by the time Mandy told Shay anything, the two of us would be a sea’s width out of reach. “Feel free,” I said. “Just don’t tell my ma. We’ll need to break it to her gently.”

“Mandy’ll convert him, won’t you?”

“I swear, ’Melda—”

The door of Number 3 opened and Mr. Daly came out. He hitched up his trousers, folded his arms and leaned against the door frame.

I said, “Evening, Mr. Daly.” He ignored me.

Mandy and Imelda straightened up and looked sideways at Rosie. Rosie said, “We’re waiting for Julie.”

“That’s grand,” Mr. Daly said. “I’ll wait with yous, so.” He pulled a squashed cigarette out of his shirt pocket and started carefully smoothing it into shape. Mandy picked a bit of fluff off her jumper and examined it; Imelda pulled her skirt straight.

That night even Mr. Daly made me happy, and not just the thought of his face when he woke up Monday morning. I said, “You’re looking very well dressed tonight, Mr. Daly. Are you off out to the discos yourself?”

A muscle flickered in his jaw, but he kept watching the girls. “Bleedin’ Hitler,” Rosie said, under her breath, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans jacket.

Imelda said, “We’ll go see what’s keeping Julie, will we?”

Rosie shrugged. “Might as well.”

“Bye-bye, Frankie,” Mandy said, giving me a cheeky dimpled grin. “Say howya to Shay from me, now.”

As Rosie turned to go, one eyelid drooped and her lips pursed, just a fraction: a wink and a kiss. Then she ran up the steps of Number 4 and vanished, into the dark hallway and out of my life.

I spent hundreds of nights lying awake in a sleeping bag, surrounded by smelly rockers and Keith Moon, picking those last five minutes to shreds looking for a hint. I thought I was losing my f*cking mind: there had to have been something there, had to, but I would have sworn on every saint in the calendar that I’d missed nothing. And all of a sudden it looked like I might not have been off my nut after all, might not have been the world’s most gullible all-day sucker; I might have been just plain right. There’s such a fine line.

There had been nothing in that note, not one thing, that said it was meant for me. I had taken it for granted; I was the one she was ditching, after all. But our original plan had involved ditching a lot of other people, that night. The note could have been for her family, for her girls, for the whole of Faithful Place.

In our old room Da made a noise like a water buffalo being strangled; Kevin muttered in his sleep and rolled over, flinging out an arm and whacking me in the ankles. The rain had turned even and heavy, settled in.

Like I said, I do my best to stay one step ahead of the sucker punch. For the rest of the weekend, at least, I had to work off the assumption that Rosie had never made it out of the Place alive.

In the morning, as soon as I had convinced the Dalys that they wanted to leave the suitcase in my capable hands and that they didn’t want to call the Guards, I needed to talk to Imelda and Mandy and Julie.





Ma got up around seven; I heard the bedsprings creaking, through the rain, as she stood up. On her way to the kitchen she stopped in the doorway of the front room for a long minute, looking down at me and Kevin, thinking God only knows what. I kept my eyes shut. Eventually she sniffed, a wry little noise, and kept moving.