Tess’s head was churning. Woah, she wanted to say, it can’t be true. Father Galvin was killed at the party, when all the while she’d been in the shed, drinking and smoking and talking about bands? Should she have seen something? Should she have heard something? What about the others? Had they seen anything? She wondered how she’d find out. Beside her, the newsreader was rumbling on about the snow. She switched off the radio and sat down, a move that seemed to remind the others of her presence.

Her mam reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘Are you all right, Tessy? I didn’t mean for you to hear the news like that.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me last night when you came in from the party?’

‘It was very late, so I thought I’d leave you be. There was an awful commotion up in the house, and Cora was in a desperate state. We all were. But Cora … she found the body. The poor woman, she was hysterical. She screamed until Emmet Minogue heard her. There was pandemonium after that.’

Tess noticed that her mother’s words were hesitant, like she was more shocked than she was letting on. ‘But whoever killed Father Galvin is still out there.’

‘Chances are he’s long gone. Don’t worry about that.’

‘Mind you,’ said Mercedes, ‘whoever did it might have been at the party.’

‘What gives you that idea?’ said Mags. ‘I’d bet the house on it being a tramp or a criminal down from Dublin. Isn’t that what usually happens?’

‘It doesn’t make any sense. Why would a criminal from Dublin kill Leo Galvin?’

‘Because Father Galvin, the Lord have mercy on him, must have disturbed the fellow while he was trying to rob the place.’ Mags put on a special tone, like the one teachers used with kids who couldn’t read properly.

Fresh thoughts whirred around Tess’s head. Had Tom gone to bed by the time the cops arrived, or had he been caught up in the mayhem? Now that she thought about it, he’d probably had to leave. The guards wouldn’t allow people to sleep in the same place as a dead body, would they? If the house had a telephone, she’d call Nina. Nina would know what was happening. But Tess’s mother thought phones were an expensive nuisance. ‘Answer me this,’ she’d say, ‘who’d be ringing here?’

‘Friends?’ Tess would offer.

‘No,’ her mam would say. ‘All we’d get would be bad news and people wanting something.’

Mags continued her speech about the dangers posed by Dubliners. Tess reckoned she was enjoying herself. Mercedes, too, had an excessively shiny look about her. Alone among them, her mam appeared … well, upset might be stretching it, but she did have the decency to look shaken.

‘Will the guards be calling here?’ Tess asked.