Father Galvin’s death had been the main story on the news, bigger even than the snow in Dublin. Conor’s dad had been interviewed. He’d looked startled. Then again, everybody on the telly looked like that. Conor had hardly been able to breathe, but there’d been no mention of how the killer had got into the house. According to his father, the guards didn’t know why anybody would want to hurt Father Galvin. At the end, the reporter stood in front of Tom’s house and, with the snow tumbling down around him, he said something about Kilmitten being a community living in fear. Paula went demented and made them recheck every window for fear Father Galvin’s killer tried to attack them in their beds.

‘I still say writing a letter’s a dumb idea,’ said Conor.

Tom snorted. ‘I can’t believe you’re slagging off my ideas when you don’t have any of your own.’

‘I have a perfectly good idea. It’s called telling the truth. I’m sorry now that we ever arranged to meet Nina and Tess.’

‘When did you become such a pain in the arse?’ said Tom, but he didn’t seem to want an answer. Instead he turned over to face Conor’s football wall.

Liverpool were Conor’s team. He had posters of the most popular players, like Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush, but his favourite was David Fairclough, the bionic carrot. Conor’s mam had liked him. ‘Are you sure he’s not Irish?’ she used to say. ‘Look at the big mop of red hair on him.’ When she’d been in hospital, propped up on four pillows, her face as yellow as a wizened apple, she’d promised they’d go to see Liverpool play. She must have known it was never going to happen.

For a while, Conor had worried that he’d killed his mother. He’d remembered how she used to say things like, ‘Conor Varley, you’ll be the death of me.’ It had taken him ages to realise that her remarks hadn’t meant anything. When she’d made those jokes, the cancer had been only a speck inside her, so tiny she hadn’t known it was there. Even after she’d died, people hadn’t used the word ‘cancer’. ‘The big C,’ they called it. Or ‘the bug’. It was as if saying the word would be enough to invite the disease into their own house.