‘I said I’d hit her back. So she didn’t.’

Joe bit his lip, amused. ‘Ah, well, I always knew you would. A man can’t do that. I wouldn’t have done that.’

‘You don’t get it, though. What it was like with her. She hated me.’

‘She didn’t hate you. Of course she didn’t.’

‘She – wanted me to be – not me.’ He would have understood, if he’d stayed. He was understanding now, maybe, just about. He’d been studying the shaved sides of the head and the shoulders and the low voice as if Matty was something miraculous, unearthed.

‘I wanted to find you,’ he said. ‘I promise to God. It broke my heart to be so far away from you. As soon as I was in Canada it felt like a mistake. I’ve never forgiven myself, Matty. I won’t, not as long as I live. Longer.’ He sat back and stared at the fire. He looked drained. Deep hollows under his eyes. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone. How did it …’ He took a long breath. ‘How did she do it?’

‘Pills.’

He didn’t say anything. Nodded, numbly.

Matty felt exhausted. Scraped bare, just like he’d said Rosa had done to him. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Can we take you? Where are you staying?’

‘No. I’ve just got to leave.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Away.’ Matty sat forward, head in hands. ‘I just – I’ve really got to go now.’

‘You’re not going anywhere. No bleedin’ chance. You’re staying. At least tonight.’

New injuries. Lungs, stomach, heart. Internal bruising.

Matty lay on the sofa bed in the study and listened to the sounds of the two of them moving around, checking on Sheanna. The small piping of her voice. Bathroom door and taps and them murmuring together in the bedroom, for a long time. Joe’s cough, and maybe the sound of him crying.

It was too much to absorb. The whole world had suddenly expanded, at the time when it needed to be small, focused. A sea, not a rill.

Matty had hit Cormac and left him. The taxi driver would have found him, or Brigid before that. Cormac knew everything, and knew that it had been concealed, which made it all worse. Matty was going to prison. And all of that seemed far away, another country, because he was here.

Joe was here, and alive.

Chapter 14

Matty woke up to find Sheanna standing by the bed in her pyjamas, holding a fluffy killer whale.

‘Hello,’ she said.

It was too early. It was still too much to take in. She was more than real. She was the same skin and bone.

The toy was pushed close. ‘This is Orla. The orca.’

A slow nod. ‘OK.’