“Ah, that’s great,” Lena says, giving him a big relieved smile. “Thanks a million.” One of the mammies, joggling her baby on her hip, is looking up the road at them. She moves closer to the others to say something, and they all turn to watch Nealon and Lena go back into the station.

—

As the car doors slam and Nealon raises a hand from the station step, Trey’s well-behaved earnestness falls away. She vanishes into a silence so thick that Lena can feel it building up around her like snow.

It would take some brass neck for Lena to offer comfort or words of wisdom. Instead she leaves the silence untouched till they’re out of town, onto the main road. Then she says, “You did a good job.”

Trey nods. “He believed me,” she says.

“He did, yeah.”

Lena expects Trey to ask what will happen next, but she doesn’t. Instead she says, “What’re you gonna tell Cal?”

“I’m not going to tell him anything,” Lena says. “I reckon you should tell him the whole story, but it’s your call.”

“He’ll be raging.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Trey doesn’t answer. She leans her forehead against the windowpane and looks out at the countryside moving by. The road is busy with commuters zipping homewards. Beyond it, and unaffected by its frenetic rhythms, cattle nose at their leisure for bits of green among the yellowing fields.

Lena says, “Where’ll I drop you?”

Trey catches her breath like she’d forgotten Lena was there. “Just home,” she says. “Thanks.”

“Fair enough,” Lena says, flicking on her indicator. She’s taking the long way, the twisting roads up the far side of the mountain and over, to minimize the number of Ardnakelty people who’ll see them. Today will be general knowledge soon enough. Trey can at least have a bit of respite to grow accustomed to what she’s done, before the townland gets its hands on it.

Trey goes back to gazing out the window. Lena glances sideways at her now and then, watching her eyes scan methodically back and forth across the mountainside, like she’s searching for something that she knows she won’t find.

Twenty

Cal is doing the dinner dishes when the knock comes at the door. Mart is on the step, car keys jingling on his finger.

“Saddle up the prize pony, Sunny Jim,” he says. “We’ve a job to do.”

Cal says, “What kinda job?”

“Johnny Reddy’s worn out his welcome,” Mart says. “Leave the dog behind.”

Cal has had it up to the back teeth with being herded like a damn sheep by Mart and his plans and his sidelong dark warnings. “Or what?” he asks.

Mart blinks at him. “Or nothing,” he says gently. “I’m not giving orders, man. We could do with you there, is all.”

“Like I told you,” Cal says. “Johnny Reddy’s not my problem.”

“Ah, for feck’s sake,” Mart says, exasperated. “You’re marrying one of our women, bucko. You’re raising one of our childer, God help you. You’re growing tomatoes on a piece of our land. What else is there?”

Cal stands there in the doorway, with the dishcloth in his hand. Mart waits patiently, not hurrying him. Behind him, this year’s young rooks, gaining confidence with their wings, tumble and play knock-down tag in the warm evening air.

“Lemme get my keys,” Cal says, and he turns back into the house to put the dishcloth away.

—

The low chatter of the telly is coming from the sitting room, but in spite of that the house feels silent, sunk deep under stillness. Trey can tell by the air that her dad is out, not just asleep. She doesn’t know what to make of this. He hasn’t left their land since the day Rushborough died.

She finds her mam in the kitchen. Sheila is sitting at the table, not peeling anything or mending anything, just sitting there eating toast thick with blackberry jam. Trey can’t remember the last time she saw her mam doing no work.

“I fancied something sweet,” Sheila says. She doesn’t ask where Trey went with Lena, all this time. “D’you want a bit? The dinner’s all eaten.”

Trey says, “Where’s my dad gone?”

“Men came for him. Senan Maguire and Bobby Feeney.”

“Where’d they take him?”

Sheila shrugs. “They won’t kill him, anyway,” she says. “Not unless he’s stubborn, maybe.”

With everything else on her mind, Trey hasn’t looked at her mother properly in days. At first she can’t tell what seems strange about her, until it comes to her that Sheila is the first person she’s seen in weeks who looks peaceful. Her head is tilted back, to take the late warm light through the window full on her face. For the first time, in the high harsh sweeps of her cheekbones and the wide curves of her mouth, Trey sees the beauty that Johnny talked about.

Trey says, “I went into town with Lena. To the Guards. I told them there was no one on the mountain that night, only my dad went out.”

Sheila takes another bite of toast and thinks that over. After a bit she nods. “Did they believe you?” she asks.

“Yeah. Think so.”

“So they’ll arrest him.”

“Dunno. They’ll bring him in there and ask him questions, anyhow.”

“Will they come search this place?”

“Prob’ly. Yeah.”

Sheila nods again. “They’ll find what they’re after,” she says. “ ’Tis all in the shed for them.”

In the long silence, the faint telly chatters busily on.

Sheila points with her chin at the chair opposite her. “Sit down,” she says.

The chair’s legs rake dully on the linoleum as Trey pulls it out. She sits down. Her mind can’t move.

“I saw what you were at,” Sheila says. “First you only wanted your father gone, same as I did. Isn’t that right?”

Trey nods. The house feels like a place in a dream; the row of faded mugs hanging from hooks under the cupboard seem like they’re floating in mid-air, the chipped enamel of the cooker has an impossible glow. She’s not afraid that any of the little ones will burst in, or that Nealon will come knocking at the door. Everything will be motionless till she and her mother are done here.

“ ’Twas no use,” Sheila says. “I saw that early. He was going nowhere, as long as he had that Rushborough fella on his back. All he could think of was getting that money.”

Trey says, “I know that.”

“I know you do. The night him and Cal had that fight, there was me cleaning the blood off him, and him acting like I wasn’t there. He never did see me. But I was there. I heard what he was at. He was taking you to use.”

“He didn’t take me. I wanted to help him.”

Sheila looks at her. “This place has no mercy,” she says. “Once you step foot over the line, they’d ate you alive. You’da been gone, one way or the other.”

“I don’t give a shite,” Trey says. Her mind is starting to stir again. It hits her full force that her mother is a mystery to her. She could have anything folded away inside her silence.

Sheila shakes her head briefly. “I lost one child to this place,” she says. “I’m not losing another.”

Brendan is a swift slice through the air between them, bright as life.

Trey says, “That’s why I wanted to help my dad. To get back at them. He wasn’t using me. I was using him.”

“I know that,” Sheila says. “You’re as bad as him, thinking I know nothing. I knew that all along. I wouldn’t have it.”

“You shoulda left it,” Trey says. She finds her hands are shaking. It takes her a moment to realize it’s from anger.

Sheila looks at her. “You wanted your revenge on themens,” she says.

“I had it. Had it fuckin’ sorted. I had ’em.”

“Quiet,” Sheila says. “The children’ll come in.”

Trey can barely hear her. “They were walking straight into it. All you hadta do was leave me at it. The fuck did you go interfering for?” Fury has her on her feet, but once she’s there she can’t find what to do with it. When she was a kid she would have thrown something, smashed something. She wants that back. “You wrecked fuckin’ everything.”

In the sunlight Sheila’s eyes are blue as flames. She doesn’t blink against it. “You’re my revenge,” she says. “I won’t have you ruined.”

That stops Trey’s breathing. The peeling cream paint of the walls is achingly radiant and the stained linoleum has a simmering, risky translucence, ready to boil up. She can’t feel the floor under her feet.

“Sit,” Sheila says. “I’m talking to you.”

After a moment Trey sits back down. Her hands on the table feel different, humming with strange new kinds of power.

“Cal knew what you were at, as well,” Sheila says. “That’s why he bet up your dad: he wanted him gone as much as I did. Only your dad wouldn’t go. In the heel of the hunt, Cal woulda had to kill him. Or kill Rushborough, one or the other.”

She considers her piece of toast and reaches for the knife to add more jam. Sun catches in the jar, lighting it the rich purple of a jewel.

“He woulda done it,” she says. “I knew by your dad, by how afraid he was: Cal almost done it that night. The next time, or the next, he’da done it.”

Trey knows it’s true. Everyone around her is changing, layered with things barely held in check. The scrubbed grain of the table looks too sharp to be real.

“Cal’s your chance,” Sheila says. “At having more than this. I couldn’t have him ending up in prison. You can do without me, if you haveta.” Her voice is matter-of-fact, like she’s saying something they both know well. “So I reckoned I’d haveta do the job instead.”

Trey says, “Why Rushborough? Why not my dad?”

“I married your daddy. I made him promises. Rushborough was nothing to me.”

“You shoulda gone for my dad. He was the one that brought Rushborough.”

Sheila flicks her head, dismissing that. “That woulda been a sin,” she says. “I’da done it if I had to, but there was no need. Rushborough was good enough. I mighta done different if I’da known you were going to come up with that loada shite about men up the mountain, maybe. I don’t know.”

She considers this for a moment, chewing, and shrugs. “What stopped me at first,” she says, “was the little ones. Cal would take you, if I went to prison, but he couldn’t take the lotta ye; he wouldn’t be let. I wasn’t having them go into care, and I wasn’t having your sister give up the life she’s made in Dublin and come back here to look after them. I was stuck.”

Trey thinks of the last weeks, her mam cutting potatoes and ironing her dad’s shirts and washing Alanna’s hair, and all the time steadily working at this. The house was nothing like Trey thought.

“Only then,” Sheila says, “Lena Dunne came here telling me she’d take us in. The lot of us. She’s the last woman I’da expected that out of, but Lena was always a woman of her word. If I hadda been taken for this, she’da had the little ones till I could come back for them.”

Trey sees Cal solid beside her at his kitchen table, while she lied her arse off to the detective. The thought of him has such force that for a second she can smell him, wood shavings and beeswax. She says, “And me. Cal wouldn’t want me.”

Sheila says, with no sharpness but with finality, “He’d do what needs doing. Same as I done.” She smiles across the table at Trey, just a small flicker and a nod of approval. “No need now, anyhow. Not after what you said to the Guards. They’ll take your da, if he comes back here. If he doesn’t, they’ll go after him.”

Trey says, “They’ll be able to tell it was you. Not him.”

“How?”

“Cal told me. They have people that look for evidence. Match things up.”

Sheila swipes a dab of jam off her plate and licks her finger. “Then they’ll take me,” she says. “I thought they would anyhow.”

Trey’s mind is moving again, gaining a steady, cold momentum that feels beyond her control, ticking through the things Cal said. If there’s Sheila’s hair and fibers from her clothes on Rushborough’s body, those can be explained away; they could have come off Johnny. The wandering sheep trampled her footprints.

She says, “How’d you do it?”

“I called the man,” Sheila says, “and he came. Not a bother on him. He never saw me there, either.”

Cal said the Guards would check Rushborough’s phone. “Called him when? Offa your phone?”

Sheila is watching her. The look in her eyes is strange, almost like wonder; for a second Trey thinks she’s smiling.

“The same night I done it,” she says. “Once your daddy was asleep. Off your daddy’s phone, in case your man wouldn’t answer a number he didn’t know. I told him I’d money saved, only I didn’t wanta tell your daddy or he’d take it all off me. But your man Rushborough could have it, if he’d leave this place and take your daddy with him.”

She thinks back, biting a crust. “He laughed at me,” she says. “He said your daddy owed him twenty grand, and did I have that saved outa my dole? I told him I’d fifteen that my granny left me, and I’d been keeping it for you to go to college. He stopped laughing then. He said that’d do, it’d be worth leaving the other five to get outa this shitpit, and he’d take the rest outa your daddy one way or another. He talked different,” she adds. “He didn’t bother with the posh accent for me.”

Trey says, “Where’d you meet him?”

“Out at the gate. I brought him up to the shed—I said the money was hid there. I’d the hammer in the pocket of my hoodie. I said the money was in that aul’ toolbox on the shelf, and when he bent down to get it, I hit him. I done it in the shed in case he shouted or fought, but he went down easy as that. That big bad bastard that had your daddy terrified: not a peep outa him.”

If Rushborough didn’t fight, then there’s none of Sheila’s blood on him, no trace of her skin under his nails. His body, somewhere beyond reach in Nealon’s hands, is harmless.

“I’d put the kitchen knife ready in the shed,” Sheila says. “That sharp one that we’d use for the meat. Once he was dead, I got him in the wheelbarrow and brought him down the road.” She examines the last crust of her toast, thinking. “I felt like there was someone watching me,” she says. “I’d say ’twas Malachy Dwyer, or Seán Pól maybe. Them sheep didn’t let themselves out.”

“You coulda thrown your man down the ravine,” Trey says.

“What good would he have done there? I needed your daddy knowing he was dead, so he’d go. I woulda left him on the doorstep, only I didn’t want ye seeing him.”

Sheila wipes the last of the jam off her plate with the crust. “And that was the end of it,” she says. “I done right by you then, even if I never did before. That time, I done what you needed.”

Trey says, “Didja wear gloves?”

Sheila shakes her head. “I wasn’t bothered,” she says.

Trey sees the shed blazing up with evidence like marsh fire: fingerprints on the hammer, the wheelbarrow, on the door, the shelves, in blood, footprints tangled on the floor. Rushborough’s body is nothing; the danger is here.