He uses his hat to waft his smoke politely away from Lena, and cocks an eye at her. “Are you with me so far?”

“I’m following you,” Lena says.

“A-one,” Mart says. “Well, Johnny had a bitta success. There’s plenty of people that’ll testify, if they haveta, that he came asking them for a loan. Some of them even gave him a few bob, for old times’ sake.” He smiles at Lena. “I’m not ashamed to say I loaned him a coupla hundred quid myself. I knew I’d never see hide nor hair of it again, but I suppose I’m an aul’ softie at heart. Maybe your Cal did the same, did he, for Theresa’s sake? And maybe his bank statement’d show him withdrawing that few hundred quid, a few days after Johnny came home?”

Lena watches him.

“How and ever,” Mart says, “Johnny couldn’t scrape together the full whack, and Rushborough wouldn’t be satisfied with any less than he was owed. There’s a few people that’ll say Johnny came back to them in the last coupla days before Rushborough died, begging for money again, saying ’twas life or death. Maybe you’re one of them, sure. Maybe that’s what Johnny was doing round here, the evening before it happened, banging on your door and bellowing outa him.”

He arches an inquiring eyebrow at Lena. She says nothing.

“Johnny was a frightened man,” Mart says. “And no wonder. I was never a fan of Mr. Rushborough; underneath the fancy shirts and the fancy talk, he always seemed like a right hard chaw to me. The Guards must be looking into him, and I don’t know what they’ll find, but I’d say ’twould frighten the life outa anyone, let alone a wee scutter like Johnny. He couldn’t run: if Rushborough had followed him once, he’d do it again. And sure, Johnny wouldn’ta wanted to head for the hills, anyway, leaving his wife and childer unprotected with that fella out for blood. No dacent man’d do that.”

Lena doesn’t bother to hide her dry look. “I’m feeling charitable,” Mart explains. “No harm in thinking the best of people. One way or t’other, Johnny couldn’t see a way out. He arranged to meet Rushborough somewhere on the mountain. Maybe he said he had the money ready for him after all. Rushborough’d be an awful eejit to meet him somewhere lonely, but sure, anyone can get overconfident, specially when he’s dealing with the likes of Johnny Reddy. Only instead of paying him, Johnny kilt him. I’ve heard he hit him over the head with a lump hammer, but then again, I’ve heard he stabbed him with a screwdriver, either right through the heart or right through the eye. Would you have any information on that?”

“No more than you have,” Lena says. “Noreen heard he was hit with a rock. But then she heard he was knifed, or maybe his throat was cut. That’s as much as I know.”

It sets her teeth on edge to give him even this much. It’s a surrender.

“Detective Nealon said nothing to your fella?”

“Not that he’s told me.”

“No matter,” Mart says peacefully, dropping his smoke to crush it out under his boot. “ ’Twoulda been useful to know, but we’ll do grand without. Whichever or whatever hit him, that was the end of the bold Mr. Rushborough. ’Tis an awful tragic story, and ’twon’t be popular with the tourist board, but you can’t please everyone. And most of the tourists that come here do be passing through to somewhere else anyway, or else they’re lost, so ’twon’t do much harm.”

Birds dive in the blue sky behind his head. The mountains are a slip of shadow in the corner of Lena’s eye.

“It all hangs together beautiful,” Mart says. “There’s just one wee bitta mud in the waters: that story about a buncha local lads doing something nefarious on the mountain that night. As long as Nealon’s got that to contend with, ’tis hard for him to settle comfortably on Johnny, or anyhow Johnny all on his ownio. And I’d like Detective Nealon to be comfortable.”

He arranges his hat back on his head. “There was no one on the mountain that night,” he says. “Only Rushborough and Johnny. Whoever’s been saying different needs to go back to Detective Nealon and correct the record. I’m not saying they musta seen Johnny leaving the house late that night, not for definite, but ’twould be helpful.”

At his feet, Kojak flops over onto the other side and sighs gustily. Mart bends, painfully, to rub his neck.

“If that loada flimflam did happen to come from young Theresa,” he says, “nobody’d blame her for making up a story to shield her daddy. Sure, it’d be only natural. Not even the detective himself could hold that against her. As long as she’s got the sense to know when ’tis time to come clean.”

He straightens up and pats his pockets, making sure everything is in its proper place. “If you think of it,” he says, “ ’tis no more than justice. Regardless of who kilt Rushborough, all this was Johnny Reddy’s doing.”

Lena agrees with him on this. Mart sees it in her face, and that she refuses to admit it. He grins, enjoying that.

“Johnny won’t go down easy,” she says. “If he gets arrested, he’ll tell the detective about the gold. Try and drop all of ye in the shite.”

“I’ll handle Johnny,” Mart says. “Don’t you worry your head about him.” He snaps his fingers for Kojak and smiles at her. “You just get your house in order, Missus Hooper. I’ve faith in you. No better woman.”

—

One of the deep pleasures woven through Lena’s life is walking around Ardnakelty. She has a car, but she walks everywhere she can, and counts it among the main compensations of her decision to stay. Lena doesn’t consider herself an expert on much, but she takes an expert’s fine-tuned satisfaction in the fact that here she could distinguish March from April blindfolded, by the quality of the damp earth in its scent, or tell how the last few seasons have unfolded by watching the movement of sheep in their fields. No other place, however familiar, could provide her with a map that’s built into her bones as well as her senses.

Today she drives up the mountain. She doesn’t like doing it—not only because of losing the walk, but because right now she would rather be out on the mountainside, where she could catch its every nuance. The car insulates her; she could miss something. But she’s hoping that, after she’s talked to Trey, they’ll need the car. She’s left the dogs behind.

Johnny answers the door. For the first time since he came back to Ardnakelty, he has the face he’s earned: old, pinched and stubbled, with a faint whiskey blur in his eyes. Even his vanity has gone. He barely seems to register Lena’s second of shock.

“God almighty,” he says, with a smile like a tic, “ ’tis Lena Dunne. What brings you up here, at all? Have you news for me?”

Lena watches his mind zip between hope and wariness. “No news,” she says. “I’m looking for a word with Theresa, if she’s about.”

“With Theresa? What would you want with Theresa, now?”

Lena says, “This and that.”

“She’s inside,” Sheila says, in the dark hallway behind Johnny. “I’ll get her for you now.” She disappears again.

“Thanks,” Lena calls after her. She says to Johnny, “Sorry for your loss.”

“What…?” It takes him a squinting moment to work out what she’s on about. “Ah, God, right. Himself. Ah, no, I’m grand—he’ll be missed, o’ course he will, but sure, we weren’t close or anything. I hardly knew him, only from down the pub. I’m grand, so I am.”

Lena doesn’t bother answering him. Johnny tries to lounge in the doorway, but his muscles are too tense for that; he just ends up looking like there’s something wrong with him. “So,” he says. “What’s the story from down in the valley-o?”

“You oughta come down and see for yourself, one of these days,” Lena says. “Take a bitta pride in your work.”

“Ah, here, get away outa that,” Johnny protests. “This has nothing to do with me. I done nothing on Rushborough. I’m just minding me own business up here, not saying a word to anyone, not saying a word to Nealon and his boyos. Everyone knows that. Amn’t I right?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Lena says. “Go ask them yourself.” She doesn’t blame him for getting panicky. Johnny’s between a rock and a couple of hard places. If Nealon believes Trey’s story, then the townland is going to come after Johnny; if Nealon doubts her, then Johnny’s going to be top of his list. If Johnny runs, Nealon will hunt him down. For once in his life, Johnny has no easy out. She feels no sympathy for him.

Trey, with Banjo at her knee, appears in the hallway behind him. Lena knows from one look at her face that this won’t be easy.

“Come out for a walk with me,” she says to Trey. “Leave Banjo.”

“Now there’s a great idea,” Johnny says. “Get yourself a bitta sunshine, have a nice chat. Not for too long, now, your mammy’ll need help with the dinner, but sure Maeve can—”

Trey gives Lena a quick wary look, but she doesn’t argue. She steps out and closes the door on Banjo and Johnny both.

They head up the road, higher onto the mountain, moving themselves well away from the house. Trey doesn’t talk, and Lena takes her time, getting her bearings. Like Cal, she’s become adept at reading Trey’s moods, but today Trey has a feel to her that Lena can’t interpret, something unyielding and almost inimical. She’s walking at a hard, fast lope, keeping the full width of the road between herself and Lena.

Gimpy Duignan, shirtless in his front yard washing the layers of dust off his car, turns at the crunch of their feet and lifts a hand to them; they nod back without slowing. The heat has shifted, turned denser and heavier. Between the tall spruces, the blue of the sky is thick and smeared like paint.

“I was gonna come see you anyway,” Trey says. She’s not looking at Lena. “Need to ask you something.”

Lena says, “Go on.”

“Brendan,” Trey says. “You said you had a guess who done that on him.”

Lena is rocked by the strength of her urge to give Trey everything she has. For generations, this townland has been begging for someone to come along and defy it wholesale, blow all its endless, unbreakable, unspoken rules to smithereens and let everyone choke on the dust. If Trey has the spine and the will to do it, she deserves the chance. Lena only wishes she had got there herself, back when she was young enough and wild enough to throw everything else away.

She’s got too old. The risks she takes now are middle-aged risks, carefully gauged to gain the best results with the least damage. Cal and Trey, as well as her changed self, keep her in check. She might still be willing to risk herself; she won’t risk them.

“I did,” she says. “And I told you it’s only a guess.”

“Don’t care. You know themens around here. Whatever you guess, you’re probably right. I need to know.”

Lena understands exactly what Trey is doing. In theory, she even approves. Trey could have decided to keep blasting away scattergun at a place that’s never treated her anything but poorly; instead, she’s taking deliberate, accurate aim, and Lena agrees with her that a matter this serious deserves accuracy. She has no idea how to communicate to Trey the chasm between theory and reality.

“I get what you’re at,” she says. “Just so you know.”

Trey glances swiftly across at her, but then she nods, unsurprised. “I only wanta get the ones that done that on Brendan,” she says. “Just them. I wanta leave the rest outa it.”

They pass the abandoned Murtagh house, slates coming off the roof and yellow-flowered ragweed growing waist-high up to the door. A bird, startled by something unseen, bursts up from the trees on the slope above them. Lena doesn’t look around. If someone is watching, the fact that she’s talking to Trey will do nothing but good. Mart will have spread the word, by now, that Lena’s been brought to heel.

“That’s why I need to know now,” Trey says. “Before your man Nealon ends up getting set on the wrong people.”

“Right,” Lena says. “Let’s say I give you my guesses, that I pulled straight outa my arse, going on nothing except I don’t like the cut of this fella, and that fella had a funny look to him around then. Are you going to stand up and say in court that you heard those lads dumping Rushborough?”

“Yeah. If I haveta.”

“What if I’m wrong?”

Trey shrugs. “Best I can do.”

“What if some of ’em can prove they weren’t there?”

“Then I’ll only get the ones that can’t. Better’n none. I already thought about all this.”

“And then what? You’ll come back here and go back to mending furniture with Cal, is it? Like nothing ever happened?”

The mention of Cal makes Trey’s jaw set. “Work that out when I get to it. All I’m asking you for is names. Not advice.”

Lena spent the whole drive looking for the right way to go about this, but all she found was the looming, intractable sense that she’s out of her depth. Someone else should be doing this, Noreen or Cal or someone who has a bull’s notion of how to deal with teenagers; anyone but her. Trey’s feet bite at the dirt and gravel with quick sharp crunches; the urgency thrums off her, barely kept in check.

“Listen to me,” Lena says. The sun comes at her like a physical force, pressing her down. She’s doing what she swore she’d never do: bending a child to this townland’s will. “You’re not going to like it, but hear me out all the same. I’m not going to give you any names, ’cause they’d do you no good. You’d have to be pure thick to send men to jail on nothing but someone else’s half-made-up guesses, and you’re no thick.”

She feels Trey’s whole body stiffen, rejecting that. “And now that you hate my guts,” she says, “I’ve something I need from you. You need to go into town, to this Nealon fella, and tell him you never saw anyone on the mountain last Sunday night.”

Trey stops moving, balked like a mule. “Not doing it,” she says flatly.

“I said you wouldn’t like it. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t have to.”

“Don’t give a shite. You can’t make me.”

“Just listen to me for a minute, is all. Nealon has this townland like a hornet’s nest; people are going mental. If you stick to that story—”

“I’m sticking to it. Serve them all right if they’re—”

“Here’s you saying you thought this through, and I’m telling you now, you haven’t. Nowhere near enough. You think people are just going to sit on their arses and let you work away?”

“That’s my business. Not yours.”

“That’s children’s talk. ‘You can’t make me, you can’t stop me, mind your own beeswax—’ ”

Trey says, straight into Lena’s face, “I’m not a fuckin’ child.”

“Then don’t be talking like one.”

They’re squared off across the path; Trey is set like she’s seconds from a fistfight. “You don’t tell me what to do. Tell me who done that on Brendan, and then leave me the fuck alone.”