‘Wonderful Tonight’ spilled in from the function room. The walls of the bar were sweating. Conversations overlapped, the occasional shriek or bellow rising above the throng. Conor was tempted. He was annoyed about being transferred. For all that he’d felt out of his depth in Cork, at least he’d been learning. There would be no real policing work in Aghaflesk, just the same low-level bullshit his father had spent a lifetime coping with in Kilmitten. Same stupidity, different accent. He thought of what it would be like to feel free again, to have no obligations. Then he thought of how disappointed his father would be. In the end he’d decided against telling his dad about his disenchantment with the gardaí. The man had enough to handle.

‘So what do you say?’ asked Tom, on his return. ‘I can change my ticket if needs be. I’d like to be gone before Christmas, mind.’

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t.’ He sighed. ‘It’s not work that’s stopping me … but everything else. There’s the baby and the wedding and … it’s a sensitive time, you know.’

‘That’s a shame,’ said Tom, his tone suggesting that was the answer he’d expected.

Conor wanted to say more, but couldn’t. Two weeks previously, his dad and Ginny had told him about Tess’s father. They’d asked him not to tell anyone, not even Paula. Especially not Paula. He’d spoken to Tess. She said she spent half her time peering into the mirror, trying to isolate her O’Grady genes. Her joking couldn’t mask how affected she was. Every day, she said, she struggled with the fact that her father had been a rapist. For Conor, too, the truth was unsettling. He’d always seen the O’Gradys as cartoon baddies, big-mouthed but largely harmless. Now he’d been forced to reassess his view of Noel senior, he couldn’t help but think about the rest of them. He worried about Paula. Then he told himself that this was unfair. Marty couldn’t be held responsible for the crimes of his father.

Tongue loosened by beer, Conor began talking about the Father Galvin documentary. His father had to do an interview, he said. Tom reckoned he should lie. ‘Why doesn’t he spin Martin Scorsese a tale about ouija boards and devil worship at the ten o’clock youth Mass? Make a laughing stock of the whole thing?’