Minogue phoned his daughter’s flat. He let it ring seven times before he put down the phone. Malone was peeling back the Elastoplasts from his knuckles, rolling them back on. He looked up as the Inspector sauntered over.
“A bit more of the other stuff, Tommy?”
Malone nodded.
“Trouble all right. Terry. He’s left the house. Said something about going over to see Bobby Egan. What am I going to do?”
Minogue shrugged. Malone nodded at the door to Kilmartin’s office.
“It could screw up everything,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. Except to keep away from him. Can you do that?”
“Christ. It’s like a game they’re playing. I could kill them for this.”
“How’s your ma?”
Malone sighed. He yanked one of the plasters clean off his knuckle and studied it.
“In bits.”
“Go visit her then.”
“Aw, Jesus-excuse me. I can’t. Really. I mean I’ve already taken time off yesterday-”
“Go, will you. We’ll be okay.”
Malone looked up from his raw knuckles at the Inspector.
“You think I’d better get away from here so’s you-know-who in there doesn’t get under my skin enough to… You know?”
Minogue nodded.
“What am I going to do though? Here’s me own brother being pulled into this crap and I’m going to sit by? I can’t. But if I have him picked up… I don’t know. I just don’t.”
“Go to your ma’s, Tommy. Phone me.”
“You sure?”
“Go. I’ll square it with the Killer. But phone me.”
“Well,” said Kilmartin. He capped the marker and stepped away from the board. Minogue put down the copies of the statements. He looked at Kenny’s name and followed the line for the evening.
“Julie Quinn,” said Kilmartin. “Kenny’s fiasco. Spotless alibi all evening.”
Minogue pressed his fingers harder onto the desk-top until the nails went from pink to white.
“Does she know anything about his extra-curricular activities, the night-clubbing? Mary Mullen?”
“She said that she’s been to the clubs with Kenny. Never heard of a Mary or anything about the case. I told her then what was up. She came on strong, Matt, I tell you. Shocked that his name would have come up at all. She started giving me a list of people I could call to check on her little Alan. References, the story of their romance, what she had for breakfast-”
“They live together, right?”
“They do,” replied Kilmartin. “Didn’t hesitate to tell me either. She’s as clean as a new brush.”
Minogue stopped pressing down with his fingers and watched the nails turn pink again.
“So Alan Kenny has all the more to protect then,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“That we really don’t know how he’d react if Mary Mullen tried to blackmail him with snapshots. Would he care a damn? Would this Julie Quinn? I just don’t know. He’s no mug. I think he’s the kind of fella who’d want to see them, to prove they exist.”
“So there’s still the two separate worlds: Ms. Quinn the fiasco, all the linen and lace, and then the slumming and slagging around with Mary Mullen. How’d he hold it together?”
“ ‘The edge’, Kenny calls it.”
“ ‘The edge’? Slinky suits and hair-dos. Telephone in the pocket. I see more of them every day. The type’d cut you in two in the traffic. Frigging counter-jumpers. And they want everything now, right this minute. A crooked breed we’re rearing these days, with our United Europe shite. Christ, man, we were better off in the bog.”
“You were maybe.”
Kilmartin’s eyelids drooped.
“Is that the way with you? Busy pissing on the Kenny blackmail idea, but I don’t seem to remember you leaping across the floor and into my office there with the case cleared. Did I miss that?”
Minogue kept his gaze on the statements on his desk. Kilmartin turned his head.
“Whose is that?”
“Tierney, James Tierney. Patricia Fahy’s beau.”
“Are you getting anything from it maybe?”
“A headache.”
“Speaking of which, where’s Molly? Voh’ Lay-bah, the owil yuu-nion’s nummbahr waahn!”
The Chief Inspector suddenly waltzed across the floor.
“ He wheels his wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels
Alive-alive-O ”
He turned on the balls of his feet and let his imaginary partner rest on his arm.
“Next dance, please. Well, where is he?”
“Jimmy: give over. He has stuff to deal with.”
“And we don’t?”
“Don’t come to me looking for half your jawbone if you push him over the edge. Call it quits.”
“No sticking power, that’s the problem. If Molly can’t-”
“Who scored the winning goal for United on the night of Mary Mullen’s murder?”
“What? Who cares? Why the hell would I know that?”
“James Tierney knows. It’s in his statement.”
“So?”
“And the other goal-scorers. The penalty that was missed. The fella given the yellow card.”
“Oh, great. Soccer is a load of cobblers anyhow. Curriers, beer cans, riots. Like England.”
“I wonder if his girlfriend is so keen on it. Patricia Fahy.”
“On what? The you-know-what?”
“The soccer.”
“I hope not-”
Minogue grabbed the phone before it had finished its first ring.
“My God, you’re fast,” said Kathleen. Minogue sat back and let out a breath.
“For a married man,” he said. “Is it yourself that’s in it, love.”
Kilmartin nodded and moved off. Kathleen asked if he would be home for tea. The Inspector didn’t know whether he had an appetite or not. He told her he’d probably have to stay late. She talked about an apartment which had come on the market today. He felt the outside of his coffee mug. The back of his tongue was still sour and chalky nearly an hour after he had drunk the last cup. He looked down at the file folder of statements he had been reading and began to push the cup around it. Like a boat trying to land on an island, he thought. The mug slowed. He pushed harder and it tipped.
“Goddamn that bloody-!”
“Pardon?” asked Kathleen. “Pardon?”
He grasped the corner of the folder and yanked it up. Sheets slid and darted out, floating down to the floor. The coffee spread in a pool the size of a saucer. A map the shape of Africa, he thought.
“Spilled something,” he said. “Give me a minute.” He laid the receiver down and dithered. Kilmartin reappeared by the desk.
“Christ, you’re an awful messer,” said the Chief Inspector. He took out a packet of paper hankies, dropped them on the desk and began picking up the statements. Minogue dropped the tissues at strategic intervals over the spill.
“Use the tail of your shirt,” said the Chief Inspector. “Like the rest of the Clare crowd.”
Minogue lifted a saturated hanky and squinted at Kilmartin.
“Jim. Thanks. Now go out and play on the train lines There’s a Cork train due.”
“Ah, howiya there, Kathleen,” Kilmartin called out. “Take him home, will you. He’s losing the run of himself here.”
Minogue spoke between clenched teeth.
“Jim says hello.”
“Do you see an end to it all soon, love?” she asked.
“Not really. I’m trying to find anything we might have missed.”
“Ah. Well, have you spoken to her?”
Minogue looked down at the brown mess where his coffee had been. Definitely Africa. He wondered if his headache would get worse.
“Who?”
“Iseult. Your daughter.”
“Sorry. No. I tried the flat, but there was no answer. Listen, did she drop a hint as she flew the coop?”
“She just leaped up from the table and out the door with her. It’s the wedding. The cancellation, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe there’s some way to talk her out of it. Get her to see reason. Talk to poor Pat maybe?”
Poor Pat? He studied the flash of the outside line on his phone, its constant glow as Murtagh picked it up.
“I’ll try her again around tea-time,” he said.
“Yes. And you could suggest to her-”
Murtagh was waving and pointing at the receiver in his left hand. Kilmartin walked smartly to Hoey’s desk and grabbed the extension.
“Have to go, Kathleen. Got a call. I’ll phone you back.”
“It’s Hickey,” Murtagh whispered. He tapped at his head. “Sounds like he’s out of it.” Minogue’s heart began to beat faster.
“Ready to try again then?” he whispered to Murtagh. He pushed down the button.
“Liam? This is Matt Minogue. How are you?”
He heard the dull bass of television voices nearby.
“How do you fucking think I am?”
Murtagh waved. He had the line open to Communications.
“I’m glad you called, Liam. I was hoping you would.”
“So’s you get another chance? I seen yous racing around the place two minutes after I dropped the phone, man! What kind of fucking treatment is that?”
Slurred all right. Minogue bit his lip.
“It’s police procedure, Liam. Straight out.”
“Wait a minute there, you! Just hold on there a minute! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Why amn’t I getting more of the social worker crap? ‘Come on, Liam, I understand your problems.’ Huh? ‘Let’s talk about it, Liam.’ What if I just drop the bleeding phone right now?”
Minogue waited for several seconds.
“Then you’d be a damn liar, Liam. You’re no friend of Mary’s.”
The Inspector looked around the squadroom. Murtagh was rubbing his ear. Kilmartin’s brow had lifted and the Inspector caught a glimpse of teeth as they scraped on his upper lip. Hickey wasn’t talking.
“So prove me wrong, Liam.”
“Don’t… you… fucking talk to me like that! What gives you the-I could just drop the phone-”
“Listen to me, Liam. Your alibi is coming out pretty clean. Tell me who you fenced the stuff to, the camera and the jacket.”
“Why? So’s I get the guy into trouble and have him and his mates after me too? All he’d tell you anyway is the opposite of what I’m telling you. ‘Never heard of the guy.’ Christ, that’s what I’d say if the cops landed in on top of me, man! Forget it.”
“Well, give me something definite then. I mean, someone else could have robbed the stuff and told you about it. Tell me what else you took out of the car.”
“What do you mean, what else?”
“If you’re lying, you don’t know what I mean then, do you?”
“A Walkman. I kept it.”
“What kind of a Walkman?”
“Sony. The batteries ran out.”
“What tape was in it?”
“What kind of a fucking question-”
“What tape was in it, Liam?”
“What’s the guy. He has a group. The guitar guy. Ahhh… Dire Straits. Brothers in Arms.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I still have it in the… Wait a minute. What are you trying to do here? You’ll pull me in on robbing the car and then throw me somewhere the Egans can nail me!”
The drone of a conversation blended with the bass, excited and indecipherable tones of a television ad. Minogue looked down at his scribble. Brothers in Arms. Had he heard that one before?
“Come on in, Liam. We can put you in a safe place.”
“Where, for Christ’s sake? For how long? My only chance is out here! But you guys are out there, still trying to run me down as well!”
“Meet me, Liam. Just me.”
“You’re nuts! Even if I did, what good would it do? I don’t know anything about Mary. I come in, you want answers that I don’t have! I don’t know what she was into, man!”
“You might know something we could use and still-”
“To hell with you!”
“Give me a middleman then. Someone you trust.”
“Like who?”
“Your friend, Tierney. Your ma says you and he are pals, right?”
“Jammy? Hah! We used to be. But he hates my guts now. Jesus! When he found out about Mary, he treats me like AIDS man. Christ! He always… Forget it.”
“He always what?”
“Forget it, I said! I’m going to drop this fucking phone-”
“Why not Tierney?”
“Jammy’s a gobshite like anyone else. He heard the Egans were on the warpath. He’s so straight, he’s like a fucking…”
“What?”
“Ah, they were opposites. Mary liked the life. Jammy’s thick. He couldn’t figure that out. He doesn’t know how people work. That’s just the way with some people.”
“You all grew up together-”
“‘Course we fucking did! As if you didn’t know that already! That’s ages-way back, yeah. Everything’s mad when you’re thirteen. A few jars out in the back fields before they built the cardboard factory out there. Next thing you know is you’re doing it, like. The girls, you know? But Jammy couldn’t get near her. Ah, what am I talking about?”
Minogue’s hand closed tighter on the pen. He began to stab it slowly and deliberately into the mess of tissues and coffee. He didn’t want to see the expression on Kilmartin’s face.
“Don’t leave it hanging, Liam. You can help. You can.”
“I’m no fucking mug! I got to look out for Number One, man!”
Thoughts flew faster through Minogue’s mind.
“We have to talk, Liam. There’s got to be a way. Pick a spot-”
“I’m gone, man. I’m gone!”
“Pick a time, Liam. Any time. I guarantee-”
“Fuck you and your guarantee! Eddsy Egan had a guy’s throat slit in the ’Joy three years ago! And Eddsy’s still walking the streets!”
Minogue squeezed the pen tight and closed his eyes. The line went dead.
He flung the receiver on the desk. Murtagh leaped up out of his chair.
“Pub phone,” he called out. “Barney’s, in Capel Street.”
Minogue handed the note to Eilis.
“Will you kindly get ahold of the fella with the GTI Hickey says he did?”
Eilis looked up at the ceiling and drew on her cigarette.
“Travers,” she murmured. “Blackrock.” Minogue winked.
“There’s the name of the tape that Hickey says he got in the Walkman he robbed. First see if the actual name of the, er, the artist, is inventoried on the Stolen Vehicles report. If you please, Eilis.”
She squinted at the sheet and turned it upside down.
“I’ll be needing it translated, your honour. ‘Brothers…’?”
“ Brothers in Arms.”
Minogue returned to his desk and flopped into his chair. He rested his chin on his fist and stared at the phone. Kilmartin sat on the edge of Minogue’s desk looking down at the floor. Minutes crawled by. The phone didn’t ring.
“Damn,” said Minogue. “They’d be on to us by now if they’d nabbed him.”
“Ah, hold your whist,” said Kilmartin. He seemed to be scrutinising the Inspector’s forehead. Perhaps it had just dawned on Kilmartin that Barney’s was on the edge of a warren of streets and alleys which led on and through the markets up to Smithfield.
“A little unorthodox there on the phone, weren’t we, Watson?” he whispered. Minogue glared at him.
“No, we weren’t.”
“What was the rationale to driving into his face the way you did, then?”
“He was drunk, Jim. I thought I could go direct while he was out of it. Maudlin and the rest of it. Prolong the call.”
Kilmartin threw his empty cigarette package across the room. It missed the bin by two feet. He stood.
“Maybe there’s a Guard off the Olympic team on foot patrol up there in the Markets.”
“Maybe,” sighed Minogue. He rose from his chair. “I need some air. Out of the way or I’m going through you.”
“Oh, the tough talk is out now, is it? Hold me back. Learn to relax, man.”
The air was muggy and thick with the tang of exhaust and hops from the Guinness brewery. He strolled about the yard, his thoughts on Iseult. Drive by her studio, that’s where she’d hidden out. Entice her out for a walk and a pint? That’d get her talking. He was leaning against the boot of his Citroen when Kilmartin emerged. From the Chief Inspector’s wary hangdog gait, Minogue concluded failure.
Kilmartin paused to light a cigarette.
“Well, Jim?”
Kilmartin shook his head. Minogue swore.
“And the rest of it. He’s alive, he’s scared. We’ll find him.”
“He’s also smart, James. He picks his phones very damn well.”
“We’ll bag him yet, old son. Barman put it at about two minutes between him hightailing it and a Guard bursting in the door. Left a half pint of beer on the counter behind him too, the little shite. But it’s not over, old bean. There are a half-dozen cars in the area.”
Kilmartin blew out smoke, cleared his throat in a long, modulated gurgle and spat across the yard.
“Look at the time now, for the love of Jases,” he groaned. “No wonder you’re gone crooked. Are you lost without your new sidekick?”
“Keep it up, Jim. You’ll probably get your wish.”
There was an outbreak of hurt innocence on Kilmartin’s face.
“Oh, is it my fault for trying to insist we hire dependable and dedicated staff?”
“He can’t help it if he has a family, for God’s sake, or if his brother ran amok, can he?”
“Oh, I forgot-everybody’s a victim these days. Quick, fetch me a consultant-a counsellor!”
“In case you forgot, Jim, you’re not supposed to take family details into account from his personnel file. It’s strictly performance, commendations, record-”
“I know that, Professor.”
Kilmartin, in his truant, shifty schoolboy incarnation, let his tongue swell his cheek.
“What’s the latest bulletin on this soap opera of a family of his anyhow.”
“Terry the brother is all over the place. He has a drug problem. He’s gotten in with the Egans. They got to him right when he walked from the ’Joy. They’re going to destroy him. Tommy thinks they’re trying to take him down in the job too. Quits for arresting Lenehan.”
“Well, there’s a thesis now. This is real Egan style, I daresay.”
Minogue nodded.
“That’s right. Nobody’s immune.”
“You think they might be blackguarding our Molly somehow, using the brother?”
“They might try but he won’t go.”
Kilmartin’s eyes lingered on his colleague’s for a moment before he looked down at the Citroen.
“Here, let’s climb aboard this rig and I’ll buy you your tea.”
“Sorry, James. I’m going to drop by Iseult’s studio.”
“Fine and well. I didn’t want to be seen in this frigging nancy-boy spaceship anyway.”
Minogue held up his fist. Kilmartin shoved the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and made a feint. Minogue went into a crouch.
“Plan for six months in traction there, you bullock! Tommy Malone gave me tips.”
“Go to hell, you Clare lug! It’s yourself that’ll get the astronomy lessons here!”
Christ! Couldn’t a fella read the bleeding paper any more? He tried again to ignore the barman. The gobshite behind the bar must have wiped the counter twenty times since he’d come in. Maybe he was drinking too fast or something. But it was a hot day, for Jases’s sakes! He was still jittery after the row on the phone, the running from Barney’s. He peered over the top of the paper again. What a kip. Things living in the carpet. The stink of the place was made even worse by the smells of the rotting fruit and vegetables and fish hanging in the air all around the Markets. They should knock the place down. He finished the pint. Which one was that, number three or four? Three. He looked at the clock. Three pints in a half an hour. He watched the two oul lads cocked up on stools by the bar. At least they weren’t bothering him any more, trying to put talk on him. Another fella had come in a few minutes ago, a big fella with an apron. The barman had a pint ready for him and he downed it in about ten seconds. Not a word out of him. At first he’d thought it was a cop and he was up out of the seat before the guy had stepped through the door properly. Yeah, maybe that’s what had done it.
He studied the leftover froth on the sides of the glass. Maybe the barman was trying to fit him to some picture he’d seen but didn’t remember enough. Surely to God there weren’t pictures of him up, in the papers. Up on walls: “Wanted Leo Hickey. Murder.” Jesus! He folded his paper and looked down at the seat beside him for his cigarettes. He didn’t want to go, he realized. He didn’t want to be out there in the streets. He didn’t want to go back to the Park. He let himself lean back against the seat. He hadn’t been ten steps from the phone when he’d heard the the tyres of the squad car through the open door of the pub. Straight out the side door into the lane-way and through the Markets. What a pack of lying bastards, the Guards. They must have had the cars ready again, waiting for him. That could only mean they had him fitted for this, for Mary. Even that guy, the culchie who’d told him straight out: standard procedure, Liam.
Why was the guy still looking at him, for Christ’s sake? He stood up. The bar seemed to move with him. Hey! He felt in his pocket for the knife. The bar seemed brighter now. The barman was rubbing the counter again, but slowly now. He saw his own face in the mirror. A sight. No wonder he’d been keeping an eye on him. The anger began to drain out of him. He let go of the knife and grasped the coins instead.
“Here. Give us another pint there.”
He watched the barman pouring it, pretending to watch the filling glass but watching him at the same time.
“Any grub here, man? Sandwiches or stuff?”
“Crisps-”
“Okay. Three crisps. Smokey Bacon?”
The barman looked up from the glass. The two old geezers had stopped talking. Christ, why was the kip so quiet? Didn’t they have a telly or anything?
“-or peanuts,” the barman added.
“Yeah, well, all I want is the crisps, see? Smokey Bacon.”
The barman placed the pint on the counter. Why was he moving so slowly? He turned aside to get the bags of crisps.
“Three bags of Smokey Bacon,” he said. He turned back, placed them next to the pint and rested his hands on the counter-top to either side of the glass. Now he was looking straight at him. What the hell was this guy’s problem? Like this was such a fancy place they didn’t want riffraff or something? Like, it was so fucking exclusive or something? He let his hand slide back into the pocket. His fingers closed on the knife again. He imagined his hand coming out of the pocket so fast, the blade opened already and coming down on the guy’s hand: right through it, pinning it to the counter. Right into the counter.
His hand came out with the fiver crunched up inside. He dropped it on the counter. The barman spoke in the same flat voice.
“Five pounds.”
What had he ever done to this guy? Was it just the way he looked or something? Did he stink and he didn’t even know it? The bar seemed to be changing around him. Christ, he really should get a decent meal before he…
“That’s a hot one, I’m telling you all right,” someone was saying. He turned. One of the oul lads. His forehead was shining.
“Yeah,” he heard himself say. “Isn’t it.”
“But there’s going to be rain like was never seen before, I read.”
Something about the oul lad’s face reminded him of something, of someone he knew. Keeping the peace, he was. He must have been reading his mind. Could he know about the knife?
“Rain…”
“Oh, that’s a fact! If you’re to believe those chancers what give the forecast.”
The glass was cool and wet in his hand. He saw the downpour beating down the leaves of the chestnut tree which he had hoped would be his home. Of course it had to piss rain, he thought. It was always that way. The minute you thought you were getting somewhere. It came to him as a pain then, like that heartburn he used to get when he was a kid. Everything wrong. Just impossible. He brought the crisps and the pint back to the table and flopped down in the seat. He’d go out later, he decided. He had money and he had a knife. He didn’t really give a damn any more.
Her eyes filled with tears. Coming here, he said, but his lips didn’t move, coming here to surprise her was a very, very stupid idea. No sleep tonight if he were to tell Kathleen. If? When. He’d have to tell her. He stared at her. Paint had dried under her nails. Strands of hair had escaped her hair-band. Some part of him must have known already, he understood.
“Is that all you can say?” she whispered. “Try to say something funny.”
Things crashed about in his head. Grandfather; babysitting; bottles; nappies. He would always remember this time, this place. The big windows with peeling paint and putty which kept the studio like a fridge in winter-the landlord’s hint to Iseult and the co-op of just how annoyed he was that he had given them such a lease before the area had become so suddenly trendy several years ago.
“Sorry,” he said. “I only meant the Immaculate part.”
He turned aside and looked down into the street below. A cluster of young people whom Minogue took to be artists of some kind crossed the street below and disappeared into the pub. A girl with hacked hair and a green tuft shooting up from the crown pedalled by. The windows in the studio were wide open but it was still uncomfortably warm. Everything seemed very far away: the rest of the buildings, the streets and lane-ways already grey, the traffic noise from the Liffey quays a street away, his memories of Iseult’s childhood.
“Well, maybe it’d be funny some other time,” she said. She pulled the apron over her head. “I’d never thought of Pat as the Holy Ghost.”
She walked over to the windows and stood next to him. That cloud was there again, the one that looked like the mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb. It must be far out at sea.
“You get really tired,” she said. “I didn’t know that happened so much.”
“Well, this is your first time.”
“Don’t tell Ma-ever-but I thought straightaway of going to London. You know?”
He nodded. Like a hunter in the blind, dozing, he thought, awakening to a stampede all around him. Over him.
“It’s true,” she said. “The thing about Clare people. How they’re different. The sixth sense.”
“Clare people are cracked, Iseult. Everyone knows that. Exhibit number one here. Can we go out for a stroll or something? The fumes here are getting to me.”
She stopped in the middle of the Ha’penny bridge and leaned against the railings. The Liffey below was close to full tide. Vibrations from the passing feet came up through Minogue’s knees. A bus screeched on its way down the quays. There wasn’t a breeze.
“We must be in for a change of weather,” she said. “I’ve had a headache all day.”
Minogue let his eyes wander down the quays, taking in the sluggish swill of the river, the quayside buildings in a wash of honey-coloured light. He felt that Iseult and he were on an island in the middle of Dublin.
“I knew you knew,” she sniffed. “I felt it anyway. Really.”
“I didn’t really know,” he said. “I sort of thought maybe… Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s great news. I’m thrilled.”
She eyed him.
“Are you okay for walking here?” he asked.
“Of course I am. Typical man! It’s not an illness, you know.”
Minogue glanced at her.
“Is Pat excited?”
“He was, last time I saw him. Then he was worried. Then he went into his moron stage. Holy water and rosary beads next. Jesus, I’m still bowled over by it all.”
Minogue did not rise to the bait. He kept his eyes on O’Connell Bridge.
“Pathetic, isn’t it,” she said. “I’m ‘in trouble.’ ”
He looked over. Her nostrils were still red.
“In trouble,” he said, and frowned.
“Well, isn’t that the expression? Or is it only old fogies talk like that any more?”
“Why ask me? Come on down the quays a bit, can’t you.”
She fell into step beside him. They waited for the lights at Capel Street.
“You like Pat, don’t you?” she asked. “Still, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Even with this church stuff?”
He shrugged.
“Well, yes. Clumsy maybe, but decent, I say. Give him a chance, will you?”
Iseult stepped away from him and folded her arms. Others had clustered around them waiting for the light also. He fingered the button again. Why was it taking so long to get across here?
“What’s so ‘decent’ about wanting to get married in a church, for Christ’s sake?”
He bit his lip and kept his finger pushed against the button.
“I could still kill Pat, you know,” she declared.
“A little louder there,” he said between his teeth. “They may not have heard you in Wales.”
“I don’t bloody well care, do I? I could kill him!”
“You told me that before. The more you say it, the worse it sounds.”
“I could! I’d break his neck, so I would.”
“Stop, Iseult. That doesn’t help.”
“Huh. You just don’t like to hear it out loud. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“I don’t even know there are different sides really. It’s not like your mother would want to shanghai you either, you know-”
“Oh, come on! Are you going to fall into line with Holy Ireland too?” He glared at her.
“Well?” she prodded. “Don’t you ever take sides? Huh? Whose side are you on, Da?”
“Homicide, Iseult, if you really want to know.”