He knew the cut of Daniel Bailey all right and, even though the man worshipped in his church, knelt for Communion at his feet, and made his Confession regularly, he knew he was a fraud, a liar and, worst of all, a hypocrite. Daniel Bailey was the worst kind of liar because his lies were rooted in fact, and he used that to keep a decent woman beside him, even though, these days, so the rumours went, his own children were not so easily fooled.

Father Murphy was a man of many sides. He had learned years ago that there were plenty of sinners inside the church itself, from the vicious gossips, who stood cleaning the altar while destroying someone’s reputation, to the drunks, the gamblers and the wife-beaters, who confessed their sins, and who he knew would be back within the month, confessing the same sins again. He knew the women who were having affairs, knew the young ones who were promiscuous, or were taking drugs. He tried his best to be a good priest, a good man, not to be too judgemental.

But Daniel Bailey made his skin literally crawl. He had joined the parish six years ago, replacing Father Mahoney, who had been moved elsewhere – he never knew exactly why. Not long after, Daniel Bailey had come to him, and confessed to the murders of a man and his child, and Father Murphy had never been able to forgive him. He had done his job, had given him a good act of contrition; after all, as he was forever reminding himself, he was only the go-between, the emissary of God on this earth. It was not his job to judge anyone, but he couldn’t help how he felt.

Daniel, he knew, only went to Confession to appease his wife, not because he ever felt any kind of remorse for his actions, and Brendan Murphy the man, not the priest, had known that from the off. Daniel Bailey looked at him with what bordered on defiance at times, knowing that they shared a terrible secret – a secret that he could never reveal. It felt as if Daniel believed he had something over Father Murphy; he acted as if they were in league somehow, as if his confession had given Bailey the upper hand in their relationship and, in many ways, it had done just that. Because Daniel Bailey had known instinctively that his confession had not only shocked Father Murphy, but had also disgusted him to his very core.