“What’s wrong with him?” Trey asks, gesturing after him with her chin.
Mrs. Cunniffe sucks in her lips over her buckteeth and cuts her eyes sideways at Noreen. Noreen, swapping out the till roll with fast sharp jerks, looks like she’s not going to answer. Trey waits.
Noreen can never resist a chance to share information. “Them detectives are after giving him awful hassle,” she informs Trey curtly. “Not just him, either. They’ve everyone in the place up to ninety. They got Long John flustered enough that he let slip that one time Lennie O’Connor bet up some lad from Kilcarrow for trying to chat up his missus, and now the detectives do be on at Lennie about what did Rushborough say to Sinéad, and Lennie says he won’t let Long John lease his back field any more, so he’ll have nowhere to put the calves.” She slams the till shut. Mrs. Cunniffe jumps and hoots. “And if your daddy hadn’ta brought that feckin’ gobdaw round here, none of this woulda happened. That’s what’s wrong with him.”
Trey feels the savage surge of triumph right through her. She turns away to the shelves, pulling out bread and biscuits at random, so they won’t see it in her. The power of it feels like she could topple Noreen’s counter with a single kick and set the walls on fire with a press of her hands.
Now all she needs to do is line up her sights. Lena said she could take a guess at who it was that got Brendan, and Trey trusts Lena’s guesses. All she needs is a way to make her tell.
“And forty Marlboro,” she says, dumping her stuff on the counter.
“You’re not eighteen,” Noreen says, starting to ring things up without looking at her.
“Not for me.”
Noreen’s mouth tightens. She jabs the till keys harder.
“Ah, go on and give the child what she wants, Noreen,” Mrs. Cunniffe says, flapping a hand at Noreen. “You’ve to take good care of her, now ye’ll be practically in-laws.” She bursts into a high, one-note hee-hee-hee that carries her out the door.
Trey looks at Noreen for an explanation, but Noreen has her mouth pinched up even tighter and is fussing under the counter among the cigarettes.
“What’d she mean?”
“With Cal and Lena,” Noreen says crisply. She slaps the Marlboros on the counter and rings them up with a neat ding. “That’ll be forty-eight sixty.”
Trey says, “Cal and Lena what?”
Noreen glances up sharply, almost suspiciously. “Getting married.”
Trey stares.
“Did you not know?”
Trey pulls a fifty out of her pocket and hands it over.
“I’da thought Lena woulda asked your permission,” Noreen says, part bitchy, part probing.
“None a my business,” Trey says. She fumbles her change and has to pick it up off the floor. Noreen’s speculative eyes follow her all the way out the door.
The three old guys sitting on the wall of the Virgin Mary grotto watch her pass without changing expression. “Tell your daddy I was asking for him,” one of them says.
Lena is at the washing line when she sees Mart Lavin stumping towards her, across what used to be her and Sean’s back field and is now Ciaran Maloney’s. Her first instinct is to run him off her land. Instead she returns his wave and vows to buy a tumble dryer, since apparently nowadays this bloody place won’t even leave her the pleasure of hanging out her wash in peace. Kojak, trotting ahead, comes to exchange sniffs with Nellie through the fence; Lena gives them a moment and then snaps her fingers, bringing Nellie back to heel.
“That’ll be dry before you get it hung,” Mart says, when he gets close enough. “This heat’s something fierce.”
“No change there,” Lena says, stooping for another armful of clothes. Mart Lavin has never called round to her before, even when Sean was alive.
“Tell me, now,” Mart says, arranging himself comfortably on his crook and smiling at her. Kojak settles himself at Mart’s feet and starts nipping through his fur for burrs. “What’s this I hear about you getting yourself engaged to the one and only Mr. Hooper?”
“That’s old news,” Lena says. “I thought you’da heard it days ago.”
“Oh, I did, all right. And I congratulated your fiancé properly, although I’d say he’s recovered by now. But I haven’t seen you to felicitate you, and it came to me today that I oughta do that. Seeing as we’ll be neighbors now.”
“We might be,” Lena says, “or we might not. Myself and Cal haven’t decided where we’ll live yet.”
Mart gives her a shocked look. “Sure, you couldn’t ask the man to tear himself outa that house, and him only after putting in all that work getting it the way he wants it. Not to mention me putting in all the work getting him the way I want him, give or take. I couldn’t be doing with starting all over again. Likely enough, with house prices the way they are, I’d be stuck with some fool of a hipster that’d live on flat white craft beer and commute to Galway every day. No: you’ll haveta bite the bullet and move down our way. We’re great neighbors to have, myself and P.J. Ask your fiancé; he’ll vouch for us.”
“We might keep on both places,” Lena says. “One for the winter, and one for a holiday home. We’ll be sure and let you know.”
Mart giggles appreciatively at that. “Sure, there’s no rush,” he acknowledges. “I wouldn’t say you’d be in any hurry to the altar. Am I right?”
“When we set a date you’ll get your invite. Fancy lettering and all.”
“Show us the ring, go on. Amn’t I supposed to give it a twist on my own finger, to bring me luck in love?”
“It’s in getting resized,” Lena says. She’s had this conversation with every woman in the townland, and has decided that if she ever gets an impulse to make another snap decision, she’ll have herself committed. She digs a few more clothes-pegs out of her bag.
Mart watches her. “ ’Twas a good move, the aul’ engagement,” he says. “A wise move.”
“Funny,” Lena says. “That’s what Noreen told me. The two of ye have a load in common.”
Mart raises an eyebrow. “Did she, now? I wouldn’ta thought she’da been in favor. Not right now, anyhow.” He shifts his weight to pull a tobacco pouch out of his pocket. “Have I your permission to smoke?”
“The air’s not mine,” Lena says.
“Personally,” Mart says, propping his crook carefully against her fencepost, “I’m all in favor of you putting a ring on that fella. Like I said, I’m after rubbing the corners off him, but he’s got a little way left to go; he doesn’t always heed me the way he oughta. It’s been a worry to me, the last while. Now that he’s your responsibility, we can discuss the problem together.”
Lena says, giving a T-shirt a neat flick to straighten it, “I’ve got nothing to say about Cal to anyone.”
Mart laughs. “God almighty, you’re the same as you ever were. I remember one morning—you were a wee bit of a thing, only this high—you came marching past my gate wearing your First Communion getup, veil and all, and a pair of welly boots. I asked you where were you off to, and you stuck your chin up just like you’re doing now, and you said to me, ‘That’s classified information.’ Where were you headed, at all?”
“Haven’t a notion,” Lena says. “That’s forty years ago.”
“Well,” Mart says, sprinkling tobacco into his rollie paper, “you’re the same today, only now you’re no wee bit of a thing. You’re the woman of the house now, is what you are—whichever house ye settle on in the end. If there’s trouble with the man or the child, you’re where people will come. And you’re where I’m coming.”
None of this is surprising to Lena; it’s what she bargained for. She’s having second thoughts all the same.
“Lucky for me,” she says, “neither one of them’s the type to make trouble. Unless they’ve no choice.”
Mart doesn’t answer that. “I like your fella,” he says. “I’m not the sentimental type, so I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say I’ve got fond of him, but I like the man. I’ve respect for him. I wouldn’t want to see him come to any harm.”
“ ‘Nice fiancé you’ve got there,’ ” Lena says. “ ‘Be a shame if anything was to happen to him.’ ”
Mart, tilting his head to lick his cigarette paper, glances at her. “I know you’re not mad about the idea of yourself and myself being on the same side. But that’s where we’ve landed. You’ll haveta make the best of it.”
Lena has had enough of Mart’s sidelong ways. She leaves her washing and turns to face him. “How did you have in mind?”
“The fine Detective Nealon’s been all round the townland,” Mart says. “Interviewing people, like, although he’s not calling it that. ‘Would you have time for a chat?’ That’s what he says, when he does show up at the door. Very civilized; as if you could say to him, ‘Go on outa that, young fella, I’ve the dinner burning on me,’ and off he’d trot, no problem. Has he been round to you?”
“Not yet. Or I missed him, maybe.”
“I’d say he’s starting off with the men,” Mart says. “And I’d say I know why. He said to me—halfway through our wee chat, all casual like—‘Were you up on the mountain at all, Sunday night?’ I told him the farthest I went from home was the back garden, when my fella Kojak here had a bitta business with a fox. And Detective Nealon explained to me that he’s been told there was a buncha lads messing about up the mountain, just about the time Rushborough died and just about the place he was found. And he needs to talk to them, ’cause they mighta seen or heard something valuable to the investigation. He can do a voice lineup with his witness, if he has to, but it’d be easier on everyone if the lads cut to the chase and come tell him all about it.” Mart examines his cigarette and nips away a loose thread of tobacco. “That, now,” he says, “that’s what you might call problematic.”
“Cal said nothing like that to Nealon,” Lena says.
“He didn’t, o’ course. I never thought he did. Nor does anyone.”
“Then what’s he got to do with it?”
“Not a sausage,” Mart says promptly. “That’s what I’m telling you: I’d like to see things stay that way. If I haveta have a blow-in living next door, I could do a lot worse.”
“He’s no blow-in now,” Lena says. “He’s my man.”
Mart’s eyes flick over her, not in the mindless way a man assesses a woman, but with thought behind them. It’s the way he might assess a sheepdog, trying to prize out its capabilities and its temperament, whether it might turn vicious and how well it would come to heel.
“ ’Twas a good move, getting engaged,” he says again. “I haven’t heard a whisper about your fella since you done that. But if Detective Nealon keeps on making a nuisance of himself, I will. I’ll be honest with you: you haven’t the same clout as, we’ll say, Noreen, or Angela Maguire, or another woman that’s coaching the camogie and helping out with the parish fundraiser and spreading gossip over the tea and custard creams. If Mr. Hooper was Noreen’s man, or Angela’s, no one would touch him with a ten-foot pole. As it is, they’d prefer to leave him be, outa respect for you as well as for him. But if they haveta, they’ll hand him over to Detective Nealon tied up in a bow. If I haveta, so will I.”
Lena knew all this already, but coming from him and like this, it reaches her in new terms. Cal is a foreigner, and she’s spent the last thirty years trying to make herself into one. She only ever managed to get one foot outside the circle, but when the enemy is closing in, it’s enough.
She says, “You can hand over whatever you like. Nealon can’t throw a man in jail with no evidence.”
Mart, unfazed, takes off his straw hat to wave it leisurely in front of his face. “D’you know something that gives me a pain in the backside?” he asks. “Shortsightedness. ’Tis a feckin’ epidemic. I’ll believe a man has good sense—or a woman, or a child—and then, outa the blue, they’ll come out with some piece of nonsense that shows they haven’t spent two minutes thinking it through. And bang goes another little bitta my faith in humanity. I haven’t enough in stock that I can afford to go losing much more of it. Honest to God, I’m ready to start begging people on my knees to just take the two minutes and think things through.”
He blows smoke and watches its slow spread in the motionless air. “I don’t know who fed Nealon that loada flimflam about lads up on the mountain,” he says. “It coulda been the bold Johnny, o’ course, but somehow I don’t reckon he’d go outa his way to stir up the townland against him just now, unless he had no choice. If Nealon arrests him it’ll be a different story altogether, but for now, I’d say Johnny’s got enough sense that he’s keeping his mouth shut and his ears open. So let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that ’twas young Theresa Reddy that did the talking. Will you humor me on that for a moment?”
Lena says nothing.
“And in exchange, we’ll say you’re right, and there’s not enough to tie Mr. Hooper to the murder. Or we’ll say he doesn’t appeal to Detective Nealon as a suspect—sure, aren’t the cops known for sticking together, the whole world over? And we’ll say there’s no evidence to put anyone else up the mountain that night, either. There’s poor aul’ Detective Nealon, empty-handed—except he’s got one person, ready and waiting, in his sights.”
Lena’s hands feel weak before she understands why. She stays still and watches him.
“There’s one person that admits straight out they were at the scene of the crime. They say there was a few men there, but they’ve nothing to back that up. And they mighta had a good reason to want Paddy Englishman dead. We all know Rushborough had a hold on Johnny, and we all know Johnny Reddy’d sell his own flesh and blood to save his own skin, not a bother on him.”
He watches Lena from under his tangle of eyebrows, steadily fanning himself. Somewhere a sheep calls, a familiar undemanding sound, far away in the fields.
“Think it through,” Mart says. “This isn’t the time for shortsightedness. What’ll happen next? And then what’ll happen after that?”
Lena says, “What is it you want off me?”
“It was wee Johnny Reddy that killed Rushborough,” Mart says, gently but with great finality. “ ’Tis a sad thing to say about a man we all knew from a baba, but let’s be honest: Johnny was always a charmer, but he was never what you’d call a man of conscience. There’s people saying Johnny wouldn’ta done it because Rushborough was more good to him alive than dead, but the fact is, the two of them brought over some unfinished business from London. Johnny owed your man a fair bitta cash, and your man wasn’t the type that’d take well to being left outa pocket. That’s why Johnny came home: he was hoping people here had enough fondness for one of their own that they’d dip into their savings to keep him from getting his legs broke, or worse. And that’s why Rushborough came after him: he wasn’t going to have Johnny giving him the slip. There might be a few people that heard some wild rumor about gold, but I’d say that’s a story Johnny put about to explain what the two of them were doing here.”