Stephen was out of my hair and Scorcher was getting there fast. Once they moved on to the next case on their list, it would be just me and Shay, forever and ever. I could spend a year bouncing him like a yo-yo before I let him be sure that I knew, another year hinting at my various interesting options. I had all the time in the world.

Shay, on the other hand, not so much. You don’t have to like your family, you don’t even have to spend time with them, to know them right down to the bone. Shay had started out high-strung, spent his whole life in a context that would have turned the Dalai Lama into a gibbering wreck, and done things that wrap years’ worth of nightmares around your brain stem. There was no way he was more than a short stroll from a breakdown. Plenty of people have told me—and several of them even meant it as a compliment—that I have a God-given talent for fucking with people’s minds; and what you can do to strangers is nothing compared to what you can do to your very own family. I was pretty near positive that, given time and dedication, I could make Shay put a noose around his neck, tie the other end to the banisters of Number 16, and go diving.

Shay had his head tilted back, eyes narrowed, watching the Hearnes move around Santa’s workshop. He said, to me, “It sounds like you’re settling back in already.”

“Does it, yeah?”

“I heard you were round Imelda Tierney’s the other day.”

“I’ve got friends in high places. Just like you do, apparently.”

“What were you looking for off Imelda? The chat or the ride?”

“Ah, now, Shay, give me some credit. Some of us have better taste than that, you know what I mean?” I threw Shay a wink and watched the sharp flash in his eye as he started to wonder.

“Stop that, you,” Jackie told me. “Don’t be passing remarks. You’re not Brad Pitt yourself, in case no one’s told you.”

“Have you seen Imelda lately? She was no prize back in the day, but my Jaysus, the state of her now.”

“A mate of mine did her once,” Shay said. “A couple of years back. He told me he got the knickers off her and, honest to God, it was like looking at ZZ Top shot in the face.”

I started to laugh and Jackie went off into a barrage of high-pitched outrage, but Carmel didn’t join in. I didn’t think she’d even heard the last part of the conversation. She was pleating her skirt between her fingers, staring down at it like she was in a trance. I said, “You all right, Melly?”

She looked up with a start. “Ah, yeah. I suppose. It just . . . Sure, yous know yourselves. It feels mad. Doesn’t it?”