What age was I then? I don’t know. Six, maybe. I never had a great notion what age I was. Tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what age I am now.

But that was our days and nights. Up early in the morning, up into the house, cleaning and tidying, Mummy Noreen sometimes doing the cooking for the Daddies, other times Mummy Joy. Then downstairs in the evening to ate whatever leftovers there was. Whoever did the cooking always made sure there was just enough. Then when it was time to go to sleep, one of the Daddies would call down to us to put the lamps out, and he’d close the door and lock us in for the night.

It was always like that. Sure, I never knew any different.

3: Sara

3: Sara

Sara was cleaning the hall floor with the mop and bucket she’d fetched from the basement when Francie arrived, letting himself in. He stood in the doorway for a moment, studying her. It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at her that way, his gaze travelling over her, pausing where it shouldn’t. She pulled her cardigan tight around herself with her one free hand.

“Not dressed yet?” he said.

“I haven’t had the chance,” she said, wondering what the time was. It couldn’t be much past seven fifteen, and yet here he was, letting himself into her house.

Her house?

An uncomfortable thought flickered at the edge of her mind. She ignored it.

“Any danger of a cup of tea?” Francie asked.

His voice was deep and rasping, roughened by a lifetime of shouting at other men. Sara knew a little of his past, including the six years he’d spent in the Maze prison before getting an early release as part of the Good Friday Agreement. A builder by trade, he’d established his property development business not long after getting out, and it had flourished in the twenty years since. Damien had never told her what offence his father had been sent away for, only that he had been wrongly convicted. When she looked his name up on Google, archived news stories said it had been for possession of explosives. He was not a tall man, but he was wide at the shoulders, and the belly, and he seemed to take up the entire hall. Standing with his hands in his pockets, he ran his gaze over the boxes stacked against the wall.

“Let me just finish up with this,” Sara said.

“Sure, I’ll get it myself,” he said.

He stepped past her into the kitchen, and she listened to him hum and whistle to himself while he filled the kettle. The water in the bucket had grown dim and murky, but the floor was now clear of blood. Yet she felt it lingering on her soles, warm and slick, as if it was her own.

Her own.