Michael had given her not just her freedom, and her daughters’ freedom, but he had also given her the one thing she had never really known existed until now. He had given her peace of mind.

She had watched the way that everyone had gone to Michael, offering their condolences – and their fealty. She hadn’t cared that she was relegated to second place. None of that mattered – that was poor Josephine’s problem now. She would soon see how difficult it was to be with a man who had to fight every day of his life to keep what he had and who saw skulduggery at every turn. It was hard work.

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Two

Father Riordan was watching the congregation with a heavy heart. He had tried to leave this parish, but he had been made to stay, against his will. He looked at Michael Flynn, and he wondered at a God who could let a man like that loose on the world, a man who paid his dues to the Church, and who actually believed that he was a good Catholic. It was against everything he had always believed. Oh, he knew of priests back home who had happily heard confessions from the men in the IRA, who saw them as no more than products of their environments, but that could never be him. He believed that the fact that poor Josephine had not been given a child was his God’s way of making sure people like Michael Flynn didn’t bring any more of his ilk into the world. But that didn’t explain why so many other violent men in the parish seemed to have child after child, year after year.

He waited patiently as the coffin was carried from the church on the shoulders of men who were all as violent as they were fêted. He would give Patrick Costello the full funeral Mass, as was his right – he was a Catholic and he was entitled to it. But Father Riordan was also aware that the man was another violent criminal, and he had died by the sword, or by the knife, which was the same thing really. It stuck in his craw. He had no option but to do as he was asked – he had to do as his religion commanded him. Jesus had been a prisoner, unfairly captured, tortured and humiliated. Finally he had died on the cross for the sins of the world – for men like these. His job was to never have an opinion or judge anyone, but it was hard, knowing what he knew about them.