The house stank of smoke, not the usual cigarette smell that lingered in the carpets and curtains, but the oily, chemical fumes of burning nylon. She sniffed her top; it was coming from her. Upstairs, the bedspreads were neat, pillows fluffed and in their place. Cushla went around the bed in the spare room to open a window. Davy’s satchel was on the floor, the leather smoky in places. She sat on the bed and picked it up. Something was jangling. She rooted around and found his Sports Day medals and the rosary beads she had bought him in Dublin. The Communion missal, his name written in joined-up writing she hadn’t begun to teach them yet. His spelling notebook, a tables book, Tommy McGeown Esq. written in the inside page, crossed out, replaced by Mandy’s name, then Davy’s. She opened his English exercise book. On the last page was the letter.

Dear Jim’ll

Please can you fix it for my daddy to get better and for our Tommy to come home and for Miss Lavery to get the one she loves.

Yours sincerely

Davy McGeown

PS Jonathan says your hair is weird, but I think it’s nice

27

27

They arrived on the third day. Two uniformed officers, the woman slight, her blonde fringe flicked out at the sides; the man heavy, with skin tags on his eyelids and a liverish complexion. They asked her if she would accompany them to the station. Gina came out of the kitchen and stood a few feet back, by the hall table. Cushla looked at her mother, pleading with her eyes that she challenge them, insist on going with her, but Gina said nothing.

She sat in the back seat beside the female officer, who kneaded her cuticles the whole way down the road. The driver sucked a sweet and stopped opposite the parochial house to let them out. Cushla lowered her head, knowing there was a clear view from its bay windows to the police station.

The building was small, in direct correlation to the perceived security threat, further dwarfed by the battlements: high fence, barbed-wire Slinkies perched on top of it. A lone officer sat in a sentry box at the gate. Cushla used to know all the police in the town, but they moved the personnel around often now for safety, and they never stayed in one place for long.

A noticeboard on the wall, plastered with fliers and posters. How to check under your car for a bomb. The confidential telephone number. Cushla had been here before, getting permits signed for flag days or sponsored walks. Once, she had gone to make a complaint about a customer who’d come in with a gun and threatened her father. It turned out to be a toy, which gave the officer at the desk no end of amusement. But the incident had caused her father an angina attack and a fearfulness from which he never quite recovered.