‘In what way?’

‘In any way? Trust is trust. Do – you – trust – her?’

‘She didn’t tell the cop about us, if that’s what you mean.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She’s not that type.’

‘She’s the type to fuck someone when her boyfriend’s late to a party,’ he said, simply.

‘That’s not what happened,’ Tony said, beginning to get confused, unsure what the point of the discussion had been, suddenly wary that now might be just the time when he’d say something he shouldn’t, inadvertently reveal her knew more than he should about the cop, about Alice.

‘So what then?’

Tony felt his eyes burn, his face blaze with shame at what they had done to him, clasping his calf in one hand, the other wiping his face. ‘I thought she was… she’s a decent person,’ he said, and realized that despite what he’d seen at the party, he believed it. ‘Whatever happened that night, she’s not the type that would have sold us out.’

‘Now’s the chance to get your own back on her,’ the man said. ‘You can fuck her over the same way she did you.’

Tony thought of Karen’s face the morning after the party. She had seemed genuinely distressed at what had happened, genuine in her denial of her own complicity in the events of the evening. He thought of her, lying next to him, the touch of her, the vulnerability of her in the story of her father’s death. None of that was fake. She was, he believed, a decent person. And she didn’t deserve to suffer for what he had done.

‘I know she didn’t tell on us,’ Tony said. ‘I know it for a fact.’

He waited for a moment, to see if they would push him on how he knew it, ready to confess what he had done, to protect her.

‘You know for a fact?’

The man stood, the length of wood in his hand.

Tony felt his confidence falter a little. ‘Yes,’ he managed, his tongue thick and dry in his mouth.

‘Funny, she said the same thing about you,’ Mullan said.

The atmosphere in the room seemed to almost imperceptibly shift, like a held breath released.

‘Get yourself a drink,’ Mullan said. There’s a bottle of Jamesons on the bar over there. Take a breather. We need to talk.’

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Four

‘We need to talk,’ Tony said.

Duggan had stopped, seemingly getting his bearings in the woodland, affording Tony a chance to catch up with Karen and Mullan.

‘What about?’ Mullan said, smiling ruefully.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to find Martin Kelly’s grave, as we’d agreed.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Tony snapped.

Mullan shook his head. ‘Hugh’s hurting. That’s all.’

‘He’s threatening to kill one of us,’ Karen said.