And of course the very next morning there was a murder in the news. The guards rang me in school. Could I take them back to the spot? It was the same guard. It turns out he was thinking of a different glen altogether. They would send a squad car. It was a dead woman and she was found inside the wall of Ballyshane, that’s the old wall that was built during the famine. Ballyshane did well out of the famine. The sale of the house did not comprise it because the farm was sold separately. Gardaí had sealed off the area and were awaiting the arrival of the Assistant Chief State Pathologist from Dublin. I would like to be a pathologist. They are always so cool. And nothing psychs them out. And you only have to talk to dead people and detectives. And maybe a creepy assistant. And you go into court and say only what you found, exactly that and nothing else. You can say yes and no at the same time. Yes, it’s possible, no it’s not likely. I can’t possibly say. May it please the court. The cuts on her thighs might have been self-inflicted or they might have been the result of a struggle. The blood on her dinosaur onesie was not her own. It’s impossible to say. The attacker was left-handed.

The squad car arrived at small break. Nobody knew the guards were coming for me. It felt great.

But the back seat smelled like vomit. It was ew. I tried to see where I shouldn’t sit but it was all gross. Don’t they get them cleaned? The passenger was a girl guard. She was a blonde and totally pretty. I expected that there would be banter like you see, but herself and the fat driver said nothing the whole time except, Where to now? Left or Right? Here?

We walked down the glen. It wasn’t too cold. There was a magpie swaggering around like a rugby player in a neoprene vest. He looked like he was sneering at us. Magpies are sneery birds. There was a mist but it was melting or whatever it does. The sun was nice. I showed them where The Dog found it, then we walked around a lot. I stayed with the girl. Her eyes were an amazing pale blue and she had a dimple on each side of her mouth. I would say she worked out. I asked her what it was like being a guard. She said, It was OK, but sometimes it was shit, like all jobs, you get good days and bad days. Her name was Sharon.