‘How are you going on, Doireann?’ Katie asked her.

‘Peaceful,’ said Doireann, still without looking up. ‘At least I was until you came in.’

‘What are you reading?’

‘The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats.’

‘You like Yeats?’

‘I wouldn’t be reading it if I didn’t, would I?’

‘Read me one.’

Doireann was silent for a long time. Katie could see that she was struggling with herself – whether to be aggressive and refuse to do as she was asked, or whether to be gentle, and comply. If she complied, that would mean conceding that she was not completely an outsider, and that she could make friends, but that pushing innocent people into the river had been even more inexcusable.

Her face was even whiter and more witch-like than when she had first been arrested, and her long-fingered hands holding her book were almost transparent, so that Katie could see the tracery of her blue veins through her skin.

At last, still without raising her eyes, she whispered,

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand.

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Katie said, ‘“The Stolen Child”. I used to read that, too, when I felt that all the world was against me.’

‘At least you had a “when”. For me it’s been always.’

‘I know. And you still have a long and hard road ahead of you, Doireann. You’ll be sent off to Limerick Prison in the morning pending your trial. I’m not here to offer you my forgiveness, because that’s God’s job, not mine. But you’ll find that there are plenty of people in the prison service who can give you guidance and support.’

Doireann at last looked up at her, with those dark, limpid eyes.

‘How can you bear it, doing what you do?’ she asked Katie. ‘Doesn’t it crucify you sometimes?’

‘It’s saints who get crucified, Doireann. I’m not a saint and never have been. That’s why I can do this job. You need to be something of a sinner yourself to understand why sinners sin, and to catch them at it.’

*

Although Jenny Tierney had already taken Barney and Foltchain out for their evening hod before she arrived home, Katie took them out again, because she needed some fresh air herself. The two of them stayed very close to her, nearly tripping her up, and every now and then they would turn their heads and look up at her as if they were reassuring themselves that she was still there behind them.