Arm and Dympna parted ways for the afternoon. Arm took a walk through town and was struck by the notion of seeing Jack with the horses.

The town farm was a walled-off half acre of picture-book pasture tucked between the technical college and the swimming centre. Out front, Arm strolled past an empty white-washed cottage, its door open, radio on inside, a row of wizened pansies keeled over on the peeling red sill. In back he sidestepped dried animal patties cratered with hoofmarks and followed a trampled track to the gate of a large fenced field.

There were two adults and half a dozen kids, Jack among them, at the far end of the field, all watching a woman on a slim white horse. She was goading the beast into brief gallop bursts, letting it bolt at full steam for a bit before bringing it back down to a jangling trot.

Watching along with Arm was a kid in a wheelchair and an older lad in rubber croc shoes. The older lad, tubby, was eating a fluorescent green candy bar. He was maybe in his twenties, with black framed glasses and a monastic looking, wispy beard circumscribing his blubbery face from lock to lock. He had those black tribal rings in his ears that stretched out the lobes. He was the kid’s minder, Arm guessed. The kid had an enormous head and a puny body pinned and bracketed by an elaborate metal frame built down over the wheelchair. A metal halo studded with screws and bolts encircled his skull and kept his oversized head and undersized neck firmly in place; further bolts, straps and supporting spokes attended his arms and legs. The modified wheelchair looked like a cross between a rally-car roll cage and a medieval rack, but Arm supposed it was alleviating the kid’s suffering in some way.

The minder caught Arm looking and smiled.

The rider led the way as the group started over towards Arm, the kid and the minder. The narrow barrel of the horse’s torso hitched from side to side in a lazy, sultry way. At the gate the horse turned sideways. Up close, Arm could see that its hide was not a uniform white, but a light, chalky grey, speckled with luminous patches of white. It lowered the suede derrick of its tremendous head and neck and began nipping at a spiky patch of grass.

‘See the horsey, Terry?’ the lad with the stretched lobes said to the caged kid.

The rider was young too, with an aquiline nose, freckles, and black curly hair. She opened her mouth and politely alarmed American came out.

‘Can I help you with anything?’

‘That’s my boy,’ Arm said, pointing at the group, ‘Jack Dory.’

‘Oh Jack,’ she said. The kids had caught up, swarming at the gates.

‘He loves his horseys,’ she said, dismounting.

Jack was looking at the rider out of the side of his face. He was wearing a crooked little grin, as if he were in the midst of some prurient calculation.