Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(23)

“About fecking time, is all I can say. Come in out of that. Here, yous”—two dark-haired, round-eyed little girls were sprawled on the front-room floor—“go on upstairs and play in your room, give me some peace while I talk to this fella here. Go on!” She shooed the girls out with her hands.

“They’re the image of you,” I said, nodding after them.

“They’re a pair of little wagons, so they are. They’ve me worn out, I’m not joking you. My ma says it’s my comeuppance, for all the times I put the heart crossways in her when I was a young one.” She whipped half-dressed dolls and sweet wrappers and broken crayons off the sofa. “And come here to me, I hear you’re in the Guards now. Very respectable, you’re after getting.”

She was holding the armful of toys and smiling up at me, but those black eyes were sharp and watchful: she was testing. “You’d think,” I said, dropping my head and giving her my finest bad-boy grin. “I grew up, is all. Same as yourself.”

She shrugged. “I’m the same as ever, sure. Look around you.”

“So am I. You can take the fella out of the Place . . .”

“But you can’t take the Place out of the fella.” Her eyes stayed wary for another second; then she nodded, a quick little snap, and pointed a Bratz’s foot at the sofa. “Sit down there now. You’ll have a cup of tea, yeah?”

And I was in. There’s no password more powerful than your past. “Ah, Jaysus, no. I’m only after my breakfast.”

Mandy tossed the toys into a pink plastic toy box and slammed the lid. “Are you sure? Then d’you mind if I fold the washing, while we’re talking? Before those two little madams come back and have the place turned upside down again.” She plumped down on the sofa next to me and pulled a washing basket closer. “Did you hear I married Ger Brophy? He’s a chef now. He always did love his food, Ger did.”

“Gordon Ramsay, yeah?” I said, and gave her a wicked grin. “Tell me something, does he bring his spatula home with him, in case you’re bold?”

Mandy squealed and smacked my wrist. “You dirty bastard. You are the same as ever, aren’t you? Ah, he’s no Gordon Ramsay, he’s at one of them new hotels up by the airport. He says it does be mostly families that missed their flights and businessmen looking to take their fancy women somewhere they won’t be snared; nobody minds about the food. One morning, I swear, he was that bored he put bananas in the breakfast fry-ups, just to see what would they do. No one said a fecking word.”

“They must’ve thought it was nouvelle cuisine. Fair play to Ger.”

“I don’t know what they thought it was, but all of them ate it. Egg and sausage and banana.”

I said, “Ger’s a sound man. You both did well there.”

She shook out a little pink sweatshirt with a snap. “Ah, sure, he’s all right. He’s a good laugh. It was always on the cards, anyway; when we told my ma we were engaged, she said she’d seen it coming since we were in diapers. Same as with . . .” A quick glance up. “Same as with most of the weddings round here.”

Back in the day, Mandy would have heard all about that suitcase by this time, complete with detailed gory speculation. The decayed grapevine, plus my man Kevin’s sterling work with Ma, meant that she wasn’t tense and she wasn’t being careful; just a little tactful, so as not to hurt my wounded feelings. I relaxed back into the sofa and enjoyed it while it lasted. I love messy homes, homes where a woman and kids have left their mark on every inch: sticky finger marks down the walls, trinkets and nests of pastel hair-gadgets on the mantelpiece, that smell of flowery things and ironing.

We shot the breeze for a while: her parents, my parents, various neighbors who had got married or had kids or moved out to the suburbs or developed intriguing health problems. Imelda was still around, a two-minute walk away on Hallows Lane, but something at the corners of Mandy’s mouth told me they didn’t see as much of each other any more, and I didn’t ask. Instead I made her laugh: get a woman laughing and you’re halfway to getting her talking. She still had the same round bubbly giggle that exploded out of her and made you want to laugh too.

It took ten minutes or so before Mandy asked, casually, “So tell us, d’you ever hear anything from Rosie?”

“Not a dicky bird,” I said, just as easily. “You?”

“Nothing. I thought . . .” That glance again. “I thought you might have, that’s all.”

I asked, “Did you know?”

Her eyes were down on the socks she was rolling, but her lashes flickered. “What d’you mean?”

“You and Rosie were close. I thought she might have told you.”

“That yous were eloping, like? Or that she . . . ?”

“Either one.”

She shrugged. “Ah, Jaysus, Mandy,” I said, putting a humorous twist on it. “It’s been twenty-odd years. I can promise you, I’m not going to throw a wobbler because girls talk to each other. I only wondered.”

“I hadn’t a notion she was thinking of breaking it off. Honest to God, not a clue. I have to tell you, Francis, when I heard yous two weren’t together, I was only gobsmacked. I thought for definite you’d have been married, with half a dozen kids to put a stop to your gallop.”