For some reason the bogmonster was attached to the back of my jacket. I elbowed him off, hard. Then I leaned back against the railings, readjusted my shirt and massaged my neck. My breath was coming fast.

“You haven’t heard the last of this, sonny,” the bogmonster informed me ominously. He was an unhealthy shade of purple. “I’m telling you now, I’ll be filing a report.”

I said, “Frank Mackey. That’s E-Y. Tell them to put it on the pile.”

The uniform gave an outraged old-maid snort and flounced off to take it out on the rubberneck posse, shouting at them to get back, with plenty of sweeping arm gestures. I caught a glimpse of Mandy with a little girl on her hip and one by the hand, three pairs of round stunned eyes. The Dalys stumbled up the steps of Number 3, holding on to each other, and disappeared inside. Nora leaned against the wall beside the door with a hand pressed over her mouth.

I went back to Number 11, which seemed like as good a place as any. Shay was lighting another cigarette. Kevin looked sick.

“They found something,” he said, “didn’t they?”

The pathologist and the morgue van would be rolling up any minute. “Yeah,” I said. “They did.”

“Is it . . . ?” A long silence. “What is it?”

I found my cigarettes. Shay, in what might have been a gesture of sympathy, held out his lighter. After a while Kevin asked, “Are you OK?”

I said, “I’m just dandy.”

None of us said anything for a long time. Kevin took one of my smokes; the crowd settled down, gradually, and started swapping police-brutality stories and discussing whether Mr. Daly could sue. A few of the conversations were in undertones, and I caught the odd over-the-shoulder glance at me. I stared back without blinking, until there got to be too many of them to keep up with.

“Look out,” Shay said softly, up to the heavy sky. “Old Mackey’s back in town.”

Chapter 6

6

Cooper the pathologist, a narky little bollix with a God complex, got there first. He pulled up in his big black Merc, stared severely over the heads of the crowd till the waters parted to let him through, and stalked into the house, fitting on his gloves and leaving the murmurs to boil up louder behind him. A couple of hoodies drifted up around his car, but the bogmonster shouted something unintelligible at them and they sloped away again, without changing expression. The Place felt too full and too focused, buzzing hard, like a riot was just waiting for its moment to kick off.