‘Ruth,’ she said, passing the older lady a bowl of refried rice, ‘will you try some of this?’

‘Certainly not,’ Ruth said, passing the rice to Tom Stedman.

‘Can I make you something else?’ Mary asked. ‘I’m sorry, I should have asked what people like.’

‘It’s fine,’ Ruth said, with a pronounced sigh.

‘Some bread even?’

Ruth turned to her and locked eyes. ‘No.’ She sipped her water; the conversation, apparently, over. Mary bit her lip and tried to tune back into the chat around the table.

‘It’s great to have us all here together,’ Tom was saying. ‘I hope nobody told the burglars though. Prime time to break in when we’re all at Robbie’s getting sozzled!’

‘Do you think there are burglars around?’ Mary asked.

‘Ah, there are always break-ins every now and then,’ Tom said, taking a swallow of his whiskey.

‘Only, I noticed some things missing today. And some things moved.’

‘Probably just the babysitters,’ Robbie said, passing a plate of chicken to Susie.

Della looked up sharply.

‘Not on purpose,’ Robbie added hurriedly. ‘Fran and Zara are great. But they might have moved things accidentally and not put them back in the right place.’

Mary thought about her smashed Alice figurine and the broken lipstick and Robbie’s missing watch. Could it really have been an accident?

The conversation moved on then, to Ruth’s broken window and Ines O’Brien’s mother and what on earth Susie was going to do with six kids for the long summer holidays. Robbie opened a bottle of Midleton Very Rare whiskey and managed to drop into conversation how much it cost.

‘Isn’t he a perfect host,’ Susie said. ‘I know so many would keep the good stuff for themselves.’

At that point, after declaring the get-together not to ‘her taste’, Ruth was the first to say she was leaving.

She pushed back her chair, then leaned down and to Mary’s astonishment, she whispered in her ear. Four words Mary would never forget. Four words that gave her permission. Four words that gave her strength.

‘He doesn’t fool me.’

And then she heard the hammering on the door.

56

June 2018

MORNING IS SLIPPING BY and I’m conscious of the school run, but I can’t leave, not now. I pick up my phone and text Adana, asking if she could collect the kids and at the same time, I ask Ruth a question. ‘You said there was a turning point for Mary – something about keeping Lily safe?’

Ruth nods. ‘Yes. Eddie Hogan called at the door that night, raging that his daughter was pregnant by Robbie. Robbie was angry and embarrassed about the whole thing, that’s for sure. But what was worse – in his mind anyway – was what Eddie Hogan said about Gavin Bowman.’

‘Oh?’

‘We could all hear Eddie shouting. Mary was like a deer in the headlights and the rest of them just sat there, delighted with the drama, I’m sure. Eddie said that if anyone knew what was going on with the Murphys, it was Gavin, because he was always “sniffing around” Mary.’