Maura began to check like Kathleen had before her, looking for a clue as to where Peggy could be. She found the money and the pawnbroker’s ticket in the bread bin and, taking it out, checked the date. It had been that very afternoon and she had been all the way down the Dock Road. Despite her tiredness, itching to roll up her sleeves and clean the kitchen, Maura slowly climbed the stairs towards the bedrooms.

She turned into Peggy’s room and flicked on the light switch, but no light bulbs were working. Something felt wrong, it smelt wrong. Her eyes adjusted to the light coming through the window from the street lamp outside. She knew the room well, had once stood at that window with a newly born little Paddy in her arms as she rocked him and watched as big Paddy and Tommy made their way down Nelson Street to the Anchor, to wet the baby’s head. Her eyes adjusted and she looked down to the floor and could make out a grey bundle where Peggy’s bloodstained clothes lay. As she bent to pick them up, a metallic smell filled the air and she reeled backwards.

‘Oh Peggy! What in God’s name is this?’

All manner of things that could have gone wrong ran through her head. After all, the worst that possibly could happen to anyone had happened in Maura’s life. She heard a noise coming from the children’s room and, dropping the clothes and in a state of shock, crossed the landing and opened the door. There was no borrowed light in the back room and she stood in the doorway, her ears and eyes straining. Then she heard it again, a mewing, a weak cry. Her heart stopped.

‘Paddy,’ she shouted down the stairs, ‘where is your rat?’

Paddy’s face appeared at the bottom framed in the stairwell in the only light in the house, from the kitchen. ‘He’s here, Auntie Maura,’ he said as he held him up.

Maura heard the noise again. ‘Paddy, do you have more than one rat?’

‘No, Auntie Maura.’

‘Where’s Scamp?’

For the first time little Paddy was stumped for an answer. ‘He was here, in the kitchen. He’s probably out looking for rats to kill. The only one he likes is Max.’