They couldn’t have made it any easier for him if they’d tried. She could scream all she liked from the cave and not a soul would hear her. He and Jay would find a way to collect the money and he would be off, leaving a note with the tinkers in Ballycroy to let the Malones know where to find her.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Mary Kate, her hands on her hips, looking up at the cottage. Feast your eyes, he thought. You won’t be there for long.

*

Nola banged on Joe’s bedroom door when he failed to surface. Pete was sitting at the kitchen table with Seamus, wiping the last of the egg yolk from his plate with a piece of fried bread. ‘’Tis not like him to sleep in,’ said Nola.

Joe had made a surprise appearance at the bar on his way home from Galway and had stopped for an hour before bringing himself and Seamus back up the hill in the car. Pete, once he’d delivered everyone safely to Paddy’s bar, had kept the lantern and made his own way back up to the farm in the early hours, refusing to stay. Despite having been the first to bed, his eyes were red from lack of sleep; he’d been tossing and turning for half of the night.

‘Why did ye not stay, Pete?’ asked Seamus at the table. ‘The craic was grand, so it was. They were all there, the whole village, and the girls too from across the road. Peggy and Keeva, you should have seen them dancing, Nola – I thought the floor would collapse.’

Nola laughed. ‘I bet Josie was cursing the lot of ye. She loves her sleep, that one.’

‘Not a bit of it. Joe gave the colleens a dance, so he did, and when he stopped dancing with Peggy he gave Josie half a turn and she loved it. I never heard a word of complaint and, God in heaven, Peggy looked like she was going to keel over when he asked her to dance. I said to him, be careful, you’ll never get rid of that one once she’s got her claws into you. She would have him up the aisle of the Sacred Heart before he had time to sober up.’

Seamus flinched as the corner of the tea towel hit him square across his shoulder blades. ‘Feck, woman,’ he wailed, ‘what did ye do that for?’

‘Shut your loose lips,’ said Nola as she cast a glance at Pete. ‘Any man would be lucky to have Peggy. Joe has an eye for no woman in Tarabeg and I do not believe Peggy has an eye for him either.’

She rolled the tea towel, ready to flick him again should he answer her back. He knew it and decided instead to sulk into his tea. Nola went back to peeling potatoes, tucking the towel into her belt. Being related to the best-looking and richest American to ever return to Mayo’s shores gave her a notoriety she relished. Now it seemed she was having to adopt the role of referee between the men in her house.