“Prettier than my mum?”

“I don’t know your mammy, remember? Going by you, though, I’d say Rosie was almost as pretty. Not quite, but almost.”

I could practically see Holly’s tip of a smile at that. The two of them sounded contented together, at ease; the way an uncle and his best niece should sound. Shay, the brass-necked fucker, actually sounded peaceful.

Holly said, “My dad was going to marry her.”

“Maybe.”

“He was.”

“He never did, but. Come here till we give this another go: if Tara has a hundred and eighty-five goldfish, and she can put seven in a bowl, how many bowls does she need?”

“He never did because Rosie died. She wrote her mum and dad a note saying she was going to England with my dad, and then somebody killed her.”

“Long time ago. Don’t be changing the subject, now. These fish won’t put themselves in bowls.”

A giggle, and then a long pause as Holly concentrated on her division, with the odd encouraging murmur from Shay. I leaned against the wall by the door, got my breath back and wrenched my head under control.

Every muscle in my body wanted to burst in there and grab my kid, but the fact was that Shay wasn’t completely insane—yet, anyway—and Holly was in no danger. More than that: she was trying to get him to talk about Rosie. I’ve learned the hard way that Holly can outstubborn just about anyone on this planet. Anything she got out of Shay went straight into my arsenal.

Holly said, triumphantly, “Twenty-seven! And the last one only gets three fish.”

“It does indeed. Well done you.”

“Did someone kill Rosie to stop her from marrying my dad?”

A second of silence. “Is that what he says?”

The stinking little shitebucket. I had a hand clenched around the banister hard enough to hurt. Holly said, with a shrug in her voice, “I didn’t ask him.”

“No one knows why Rosie Daly got killed. And it’s too late to find out now. What’s done is done.”

Holly said, with the instant, heartbreaking, absolute confidence that nine-year-olds still have, “My dad’s going to find out.”

Shay said, “Is he, yeah?”

“Yeah. He said so.”

“Well,” Shay said, and to his credit he managed to keep almost all of the vitriol out of his voice. “Your da’s a Guard, sure. It’s his job to think like that. Come here and look at this, now: if Desmond has three hundred and forty-two sweets, and he’s sharing them between himself and eight friends, how many will they get each?”

“When the book says ‘sweets’ we’re supposed to write down ‘pieces of fruit.’ Because sweets are bad for you. I think that’s stupid. They’re only imaginary sweets anyway.”

“It’s stupid all right, but the sum’s the same either way. How many pieces of fruit each, then?”