‘Did you talk to the family or the mother?’
‘I didn’t have that much time. I wasn’t even supposed to be there. If it’s worth looking at, we’d need to do a proper investigation. Can I give you a lift into the office?’
‘Seeing as I’m in your car.’
Considine drove fast through the dawdling weekend traffic, nipping into gaps, her hand always on the gearstick.
‘Barrett said you got the post-mortem results yesterday,’ she said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘He said he didn’t have time to tell me about them.’
‘He’s a cocky one. There were no huge surprises. Cause of death was the severing of the spinal cord from a single blow to the nape. The bruising on the back was also caused by trauma from some kind of blunt weapon – a bar or heavy stick. The skin was broken in places.’
She was silent for the rest of the journey. Swan knew they were both doing the same thing: playing out scenes of violence in their heads, imaginations reaching into the dark for actions that could fit the consequences.
11
Ali watched Davy sleep, his cheek vibrating against the train window, his skin the colour of lard. She ate crisps and drank tea from a plastic cup, gazing idly at the hedges and fences scrolling by. In an hour or so she would be at her aunt and uncle’s, see her cousins for the first time in years. She had four cousins in Buleen: Roisín, married the year before; Brendan, the eldest, who now worked the farm with his dad; and the twins Michael and Gerard – rowdy boys who teased her when she was small and made her cry. She hadn’t seen them enough over the years to think of them as friends now.
A man passing down the aisle turned his head to stare at her, and she wondered whether he recognised her from the telly. There was no way of telling how conspicuous she had become. She kept her eyes on the window as much as she could. After a long time, she shook Davy’s arm.
‘Hey, we’re almost there.’
He stretched and rubbed at his mouth, frowned at the passing view and executing a wailing yawn that gave her a full view of his gullet.
‘My, what a big mouth you have.’
‘All the better to regurgitate my innards, through,’ he said.
‘You shouldn’t have drunk all that whiskey. Tell me what Una said on the phone. Are you sure it’s okay?’
‘She said you were more than welcome. She’s making up Roisín’s old room.’
‘Davy?’
‘Mmm?’
‘I’ve only ten pounds with me, and I don’t know how long I’m staying. I feel I should give her something.’
‘Nonsense, she’s your aunt. Buy her some Milk Tray. You might need a bit more for drinking money, though. Maybe Brendan will pay me up front and I’ll give you a favourable loan.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
Her cousin Brendan was leaning against a pillar on the platform at Kinmore. Last time Ali had seen him he was an almost-mute adolescent. He still looked grumpy, still wore glasses, but was as tall as a drainpipe now and, in his narrow black trousers and wrecked denim shirt, somehow more youthful than he had been as a child. She was immediately conscious of wanting him to think well of her.
He greeted Davy with an open-handed blow to his shoulder.
‘All right?’
Davy just winced.
‘Travel sickness,’ said Ali.
‘Me arse,’ said Brendan, ‘looks self-inflicted to me.’ He looped his arms around Ali in an awkward hug. ‘Saw you on the telly!’
She groaned.
‘You’re not to mind Mam, if she gets at you for some of the things you said. She’s old-fashioned.’
‘She’ll probably have the priest waiting to exorcise you,’ Davy said.
Brendan gave a short laugh. ‘Not everyone gets called a slut on the Late Late. It’s quite an honour for us.’
A faded red van stood outside the station and Brendan urged them to praise it, even though rust frothed at the door corners. He found space for their bags among a collection of bulky gaming machines in the back. Their fake-wood sides made Ali think of coffins.
They sat in a high row behind the windscreen, Ali sandwiched in the middle. Brendan drove fast out of Kinmore and along twisting roads with high hedges heavy with summer’s growth and the dust of the road. The Clash sang about Spanish bombs on the tape deck, and Brendan shouted along, thumping the steering wheel. Davy was leaning out the open side window, jaw clenched against nausea.
They turned onto a main road, and Ali could see fields stretching out around her, rising and falling in gentle humps. Between two hills the bright-silver pan of Lough Dreena appeared briefly.
‘Why are we going this way?’ asked Davy.
‘A little side trip, Big D.’ Brendan pointed ahead to a large ochre-coloured building. It sat naked on empty ground like a box fallen from the sky. Big red letters made to look like rustic logs spelled out ‘Red Rock Saloon’ on the gable end.
He pulled the van into the vast car park, executing an unnecessarily tight turn into one of its empty bays. They could feel the machines tip and bang as they bumped to a halt.
‘Give us a hand here – I’ll run you in gently.’
Davy grunted and climbed out of the van.
Ali followed, standing on the hot tarmac while Brendan hooked a wooden ramp to the back of the van and manoeuvred one of the machines down it on a porter’s trolley.
‘Get the plug, will ye?’
Davy picked up the trailing flex and walked after Brendan. Ali waited, glad of the stillness and sunshine. A liver-coloured spaniel walked along the side of the road, all on its own. When it spotted Ali it increased its pace, looking over its shoulder as if it didn’t want to be associated with the likes of her. Maybe it had seen the Late Late. The word slut wouldn’t leave her ears.
The boys finally appeared again, bickering loudly. Davy had staged some kind of miraculous recovery. His colour was better and he was laughing. Brendan
