They both noticed at the same moment that the chair had stopped rocking.

‘She’s happy with what we’ve done, I can feel it,’ said Nola. ‘We’re doing the right thing.’

‘Come on, woman.’ Seamus slapped his cap back on his head. ‘They’ll be needing that butter down in the post office before they run out of sandwiches. Ten men arrived from Ballycroy in the back of a van to help. I heard one of them shout, “I’m not lifting a finger unless the butties are spread with Nola Malone’s butter.”’

Nola grinned from ear to ear and blushed. ‘Get away with you,’ she said as she closed the cottage door behind them. ‘I never thought the day I married you that I’d be condemned to years of your blarney.’

As she stepped up onto the cart, Seamus placed a hand on each of her buttocks and pushed her up. ‘No, and I never thought that under that skirt you would have the nicest arse in Tarabeg. Life’s full of surprises, missus.’ He climbed into the cart next to her, but as they turned and looked at each other for a long moment the smiles disappeared.

‘We will get her back, won’t we, Seamus?’ she said.

‘Aye, we will. ’Tis the money he’s after. He has no axe to grind with Mary Kate. Evil men like him, they worship the money.’

*

Mary Kate froze at the sound of his voice; her breath, laboured from the effort of moving across the cave floor, caught in her throat. She could smell the pus from the wound in his leg, but she couldn’t see him. If her attention hadn’t been so focused on her inch-by-inch shuffle towards the strip of light on the floor of the cave, she would have heard him approaching. Jay’s breathing was deep and noisy. She had heard him glugging the whiskey from the bottle and had assumed her other captor was in the same state of unconsciousness.

Something cold and hard prodded her in the back and she gasped. Then he screamed so loud and so close to her, she let out a small shriek in response. ‘Move,’ he gasped. ‘Move.’

His breathing was strained and she dared to turn her head to look at him. The part of the cave she had moved to was lighter and airier. Letting her breath go, she gulped in a lungful of the air, inhaling towards the light and away from the man who called himself her granddaddy. She might have been bound and virtually helpless, but she felt a new strength and determination running through her; she was no longer as afraid or disoriented as she’d been earlier. ‘N… n… no, I w… won’t move back into there,’ she said with huge difficulty.

There was a loud, dull thud on the floor next to her and his body banged into the side of her. In a panic, she shuffled to the side and let out a stifled scream. As soon as she was clear of his hot breath, she pulled herself up into a sitting position, though she was trembling so much, she feared she’d fall back down.