My brother Tony never asked me how I met Tom Bowles and how the nickname of Serena’s dad came up. That should have made me think. Like he must already have known how I met him. I could imagine Tom Bowles telling him: I met your sister, she’s going to give me an alibi for the murder. I didn’t like that idea. But I still didn’t know whether Tony went up to Ballyshane. And what did he do up there? I started taking The Dog for a walk again in the evenings after dark, and just like accidentally finding myself in Ballyshane. The lawns were cut now, and someone had been pruning trees. There was a painter’s scaffold at one wall and it was half-painted. The place was beginning to look like someone cared. On the first evening I just chilled in the woods for an hour wondering if Tony would turn up, but he didn’t so I went home. But the second night I couldn’t resist going to the window. It was the kitchen window because that was the only one with lights on. I saw Tom Bowles sitting by a big Aga cooker with a mug of tea in his hands. Grace was cooking. They were watching a small TV high up on the wall. It was the news. Like I think everything they say on the news was written by predictive text. I don’t get why people watch it. Like someone is thinking of invading someplace, you just know it will turn out a disappointment. I remember the kitchen because old Miss Corry used to give me tea in there. There was a big pine table with a Formica layer glued on top. There were five pine chairs. The sink was one of those ancient ones that people make flower pots out of. But the cooker was new and it was like one of those huge cookers you see on MasterChef. I was impressed. There was a piece of string hung over the stove and there were clothes drying on, shirts and panties and stuff. But what shocked me was there was a bra. A proper bra. Like I didn’t expect them to use ordinary bras. That made me look at her again. And this time I was thinking maybe she was a woman after all, just a mannish-looking woman. She had big cheekbones and she was very tall. She looked twice as tall beside Tom Bowles. And she was wearing leggings and a long shirt and when I saw her front I couldn’t see any sign of man stuff. I think I concentrated too much because suddenly I noticed that she was looking out the window. The window that had me on the other side of it. Then Tom Bowles turned too. He waved. I panicked. I ran for the woods. The Dog gets excited when I run. He thinks I am Hunting Rabbits or something wild and he barks. He thinks I’ve finally Come To My Senses and started acting like a proper dog instead of a stupid non-rabbit-aggressive pacifist. So when I got to the trees I tried to shush him but he kept barking and running away from me. I know what it meant in dog psychology: he thought I was giving up too easily on the rabbit confrontation business and he wanted me to go all Semper Fide and Death to Rabbits. But I legged it and he followed me.