“The size of them carrots,” Mart says, stirring Cal’s bucket with his crook. “Someone’ll rob one of them and give your scarecrow a fine big mickey.”

“I got plenty to spare,” Cal says. “Help yourself.”

“I might take you up on that. I got a recipe offa the internet for some Moroccan lamb yoke; a few carrots’d liven it up. Do they have the aul’ carrots in Morocco?”

“Dunno,” Cal says. He knows why Mart’s here, but he’s not in the mood to do the work for him. “You can go ahead and introduce them.”

“I won’t get the chance. There’s not a lot of Moroccans around these parts.” Mart watches while Cal pulls up another carrot and brushes the dirt away. “So,” he says. “Paddy Englishman, Paddy Irishman, and Paddy American walked into a gold rush, and Paddy Englishman never walked out. Is it true ’twas your Theresa that found him?”

“Yep,” Cal says. “Took the dog out for a walk, and there he was.” He has no idea how Mart came by that information. He wonders if some mountainy man was watching from the trees, the whole time they were by the body.

Mart pulls out his tobacco pouch and starts rolling himself a cigarette. “I saw the Guards calling in to you earlier,” he says, “doing their aul’ detectivating and investimagating. That car won’t stay shiny for long, on these roads. What kinda men were they?”

“The uniform didn’t say much,” Cal says, yanking up another carrot. “The detective seems like he knows his job.”

“And you’d be the man to spot that. Wouldja look at that, Sunny Jim: after all this time, you’re finally coming in useful.” Mart licks the rolling paper in one neat sweep. “I’m looking forward to having the chats with them. I never talked to a detective before, and you say we’ve got ourselves a fine specimen. Is he a countryman?”

“Dublin. According to the kid.”

“Ah, fuck’s sake,” Mart says in disgust. “I won’t be able to enjoy myself talking to him, if I’ve to listen to that noise the whole time. I’d rather have a tooth drilled.” His lighter isn’t working; he gives it a pained look, shakes it, and tries again, with more success. “Didja get any idea of what way he’s thinking?”

“This early on, probably he’s not thinking anything. And if he was, he wouldn’t tell me.”

Mart’s eyebrow lifts. “Would he not? And you a colleague?”

“I’m not a colleague,” Cal says. “I’m just another guy who could’ve done it. And I sure as hell won’t be a colleague once he hears about us fooling around in that river.”

Mart shoots him an amused glance. “Musha, God love you. Are you after getting yourself all in a tither about that bitta nonsense?”

“Mart,” Cal says, sitting back on his haunches. “They’re gonna find out.”

“Did you mention it to him, didja?”

“It didn’t come up,” Cal says. Mart’s grin widens. “But someone will, sooner or later.”

“D’you reckon?”

“Come on, man. This whole county knows Rushborough was looking for gold. Half of them have to know about us salting the river. Someone’s gonna say something.”

Mart smiles at him. “D’you know something,” he says, “you’re after settling in so well around here, sometimes I do forget you’re a blow-in. Sure, it feels like you’ve always been here.” He lets out a thin ribbon of smoke between his teeth. The air is so still that it hangs in front of him, slowly dissipating. “No one’ll say nothing about that, Sunny Jim. Not to the Guards. And if someone did…” He shrugs. “This townland’s a terrible place for the rumors. Everyone passing on what their auntie’s cousin’s missus said, adding a wee bitta decoration here and there to make it interesting…Stories do get terrible twisted up, along the way. Someone musta got the wrong end of the stick.”

“What if they check the story out, look for online purchases of gold delivered to this area in the last couple of weeks? You’re gonna pop right up.”

“I don’t trust them banks up in the Big Smoke,” Mart explains. “Sure, what with the Brexit and all, they could collapse any day. Any man of sense’d feel safer with some of his savings where he can put his hand on them. I’d recommend the same financial strategy to you, sunshine. The gold standard: you can’t beat it.”

“They’re gonna go through Rushborough’s phone. And Johnny’s.”

“God, ’tis great having the inside scoop,” Mart says admiringly. “I knew there was a reason we kept you around. I’ll tell you why I’m not worried about what might be on them phones. It’s ’cause them two fine examples of manhood weren’t just a pair of messers chancing their arm, like myself and the lads. Them two are professionals. They went about this the right way. Thorough-like.”

“Johnny never went about anything thorough-like in his life,” Cal says.

“Maybe not,” Mart agrees. “But your man Rushborough’d keep him up to the mark, all right. Johnny wouldn’t put a toe outa line around that gazebo. There’s nothing on them phones.”

His voice has a flat, gentle finality. “OK,” Cal says. “Maybe the Guards’ll never prove anything about the gold. But they’re gonna hear about it. Maybe not what Rushborough and Johnny were trying to pull, but what you and the guys were.”

“And yourself,” Mart reminds him. “Credit where credit’s due.”

“Whatever. Point is, either way, that’s motive for someone. Rushborough found out about the river, he was going to go to the cops, someone got scared and shut his mouth. Or someone found out about Rushborough’s scam and didn’t appreciate it.”

“Is that what you reckon happened?” Mart inquires.

“I didn’t say that. I said Nealon, the detective, he’s gonna be looking at that possibility.”

“The man’s welcome to look all he likes,” Mart says, with a magnanimous wave of his smoke, “and good luck to him. I wouldn’t wanta be in his shoes, but. He can have all the motive in the world, but it’s no good to him without a man on the other end. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, someone lets slip something about gold. Paddy Joe says he heard it from Michael Mór, and Michael Mór says it was Michael Beag that told him, and Michael Beag says it mighta been Pateen Mike that said it but he was six pints in so he couldn’t swear to it, and Pateen Mike says he got it from Paddy Joe. I’ll tell you one thing for certain: there won’t be a soul saying he was at that river, or can name a single man that was. If the gold is anything at all, it’ll be just one of them mad rumors that do spring up in a backward wee community the likes of this one. Morning mist, Sunny Jim, if you’re feeling poetical. The minute you try to nail it down, it turns to nothing.”

He mimes it, catching air and holding up an empty hand.

“Someone might have a motive, all right, but who would it be? Here we go round the mulberry bush, bucko, all on a sunny morning.”

Cal goes back to his carrots. “Maybe,” he says.

“Don’t be worrying your head,” Mart says. “Not about that, anyhow.” He drops his cigarette butt and grinds it out with the end of his crook. “Tell me something, Sunny Jim,” he says. “Just to satisfy the aul’ curiosity. Was it you that done it?”

“Nope,” Cal says, working his hand fork around a stubborn carrot. “If I was gonna whack anyone, it woulda been Johnny.”

“Fair enough,” Mart acknowledges. “To be honest with you, I’m amazed no one’s done that long ago. You never know your luck, but; it could happen yet. Was it the child?”

“No,” Cal says. “Don’t even go there.”

“I’ll admit I can’t see any reason why she woulda bothered her arse,” Mart says agreeably, ignoring his tone, “but you’d never know with people. I’ll take your word for it.”

“I oughta be asking you the same thing,” Cal says. “You said you were aiming to do something about Rushborough and Johnny and their con. Did you?”

Mart shakes his head. “You oughta know me better than that by now, bucko,” he says. “ ’Twouldn’t be my style at all, at all. I’m a man of diplomacy, so I am. Communication. There’s seldom any need for anything extreme, if you’ve the knack of getting your message across.”

“You oughta be a politician,” Cal says. He was just making a point; he doesn’t in fact suspect Mart. He can see Mart killing someone, but not until all the more economical options had been exhausted.

“D’you know,” Mart says, pleased, “I’ve often thought that myself. If ’twasn’t for the farm, I’d love to head for Leinster House and pit my wits against that shower. I’d back myself against that eejit outa the Greens with the prissy aul’ Mother Superior head on him, any day. That fucker hasn’t a clue.”

He bends over in installments, favoring his worse hip, to make a careful selection from the bucket. “I’d love for it to be Johnny,” he says. “Wouldn’t that be nice and tidy altogether? We could be rid of the two of them rapscallions, all in one go. No question about it: if I’d my pick, I’d go for Johnny.”

He straightens up, holding his handful of carrots. “At the end of the day,” he says, “it doesn’t matter a tap what I think, or what you think. All that matters is what the pride of Dublin City thinks, and for that we’ll have to wait and see what way the wind blows him.” He waves the carrots at Cal. “I’ll enjoy these, now. If you spot any Moroccans, send them my way for the dinner.”

—

After letting it sit in her mind all day, Lena still isn’t sure what she thinks about Rushborough being killed. She’s hoping Cal, with his experience in this field, will help to clarify it for her. When she arrives at his place, she finds him working his way through a vast heap of carrots on the kitchen table, peeling them, chopping them, and packing them into freezer bags. Lena, who knows Cal’s ways, doesn’t take this as a good sign. He’s like a man buckling down to face a hard winter, or a siege.

She’s brought a new bottle of bourbon. While Cal tells her about his morning, she pours them each a drink, heavy on the ice, and settles herself opposite him at the table, to take over the chopping. Cal is peeling carrots like they threatened his family.

“I’d bet on the guy being good,” he says. “Nealon; the detective. He’s easy with the job, got a light hand, knows how to take his time, but you can tell he can pull out the hard-core stuff when it’s needed. If I’da been partnered with him, back in the day, I wouldn’t’ve complained.”

“You reckon he’ll get his man,” Lena says, cutting herself a bit of carrot to eat.

Cal shrugs. “Too early to say. He’s the type that does. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Well,” Lena says, testing, “the sooner he gets him, the sooner he’ll be outa our hair.”

Cal nods. There’s a silence: only the soft monotonous snicks of the peeler and the knife, and the dogs sighing in their sleep, and the buzz of a faraway tractor.

Lena knows Cal is waiting for her to ask whether he killed Rushborough, and she’s not going to do it. Instead she takes a sip of her drink and informs him, “I never laid a finger on your man. Just so you know.”

Cal’s taken-aback face makes her laugh, and after a second he grins too. “Well, it woulda been indelicate to ask,” he says, “but I guess that’s good to know.”

“I didn’t want you too scared to go to sleep tonight,” Lena explains. “I couldn’t be doing with you tossing and turning in the bed, wondering were you in with a homicidal maniac.”

“Well,” Cal says, “neither are you. I’m not mourning the guy, but I didn’t touch him either.”

Lena reckoned that anyway. She doesn’t consider Cal to be incapable of killing, but if he did, she doesn’t believe this is who or how it would be. Trey needs him around; that ties his hands.

She says, “So who’s your money on?”

Cal, turning back to his carrots, tilts his head noncommittally. “Nealon asked me that too. I said Johnny. I don’t know if I believe that, but he’s the one that makes the most sense.”

Lena says, “He showed up at my house last night.”

Cal looks up fast. “Johnny did?”

“The man himself.”

“What’d he want?”

“He wanted rescuing from his own eejitry, is what. It’s after getting out that his gold is a loada shite.”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “I told Mart.”

From the moment she drove off and left Mart waving by Cal’s gate, Lena suspected that would happen. Hearing it confirmed still makes her shoulders brace. Lena, who has been called cold plenty of times and acknowledges some truth in that, recognizes it when she sees it: under all the chat and the mischief, which are real enough, Mart is cold as stone. She understands why Cal did what he did. She just hopes he turns out to be right.

“Well,” she says, “Mart listened. Johnny had a warning, he said. He wasn’t sure from who, but it was clear enough: get out or we’ll burn you out.”

“What the fuck,” Cal says, putting down what’s in his hands.

“What’d you expect?”

“Mart’d tell Johnny his big idea was tanked and there was no point sticking around. Maybe a few of them would give him a beat-down, I dunno. I was just trying to get the kid out of this mess. Not get her set on fire.”

He’s ready to speed up the mountain and rip Trey away from that house, by force if needed. “They won’t be burned out,” Lena says. “Not when they’re at home, anyhow. The lads’d be careful about that.”

“Jesus Christ,” Cal says. “The hell am I doing in this fucking place?”

“Johnny was panicking, last night,” Lena says. “That’s all. He didn’t think this through, he got in deeper than he expected, and he lost the head. He could only ever handle things when they went his way.”

“Right,” Cal says. He shakes off the shot of fear and makes himself go back to his carrots. “What’d he want you to do about it?”

“Talk to people. You. Noreen. Get the dogs called off.”

“What the hell,” Cal says. “Why you?”

Lena raises an eyebrow at him. “You don’t reckon I’ve the diplomatic skills for it?”

She doesn’t get a grin. “You don’t get mixed up in townland business. Johnny’s not a moron, he has to know that. Why’d he go hassling you?”

Lena shrugs. “I’d say that’s why. He reckoned I wouldn’t care what he was trying to put over on this place. He started off with old times’ sake—you know I don’t deserve this, I’m no angel but you know I’m not as bad as I’m painted, you’re the only one that ever gave me a chance, all that jazz. He’s awful charming when he wants to be, is Johnny, and he wanted to last night. He was scared, all right.”

“Gee,” Cal says. “Sure sounds charming. ‘Hey, I got myself in trouble by being a shitheel and not even being smart about it, could you be a doll and pull me out?’ ”

“That’s what I said to him, more or less: his poor misunderstood self wasn’t my problem. He switched tack then: if I wouldn’t help him for his own sake, I had to do it for Trey’s.”