It had been twenty-seven days since they had questioned her; thirty since she dumped the McGeowns at the edge of Short Strand; thirty-five since Tommy McGeown emptied a gun into Michael’s body. There was no word of Tommy’s trial, although she had played it out in her head, in a physical space she had made months ago, in daydreams of Michael; a room bright with television lights and tiered with mahogany benches, lifted from Rumpole and Crown Court. Tommy in the dock. On bad days, she is there too, beside him. Mostly she is taking the stand, turning to face the terraces of spectators. They are all there. Joanna Agnew, held up by Dermot. Jim and Penny, Jane. Victor, sometimes with them, more often among the press. Betty McGeown, alone. All except Michael, who has been reduced to photographs, ballistic analysis, autopsy reports. Plastic pouches of punctured, bloodied clothing.

She licked her index finger and lifted a piece of ash from his cardigan. His smell was long gone, but she liked to wake with its stitches printed on her skin. Blackberry, honeycomb, diamond. Sometimes the turning row where the cable crossed over itself. She reached for the ashtray. Beside it, Davy’s missal and medals had joined The Black Prince and the key and the bar of soap. The novena he had read in jest, that didn’t stop him from getting killed. A Havishamesque assemblage. She understood, now, her mother’s grief. The heaviness that pulled her down into the centre of the bed, that made the smallest task or movement feel like an Olympian feat. Washing. Eating. Standing up.

She had seen no one but Gina and Eamonn since Gerry left, although she kept out of Eamonn’s way when he called round with the children – there was a third one now, another cherubic girl. Cushla stood at her bedroom door to listen to her mother and brother speak. The business was trickling down the tubes. Leslie drank in the bar the soldiers drank in. Minty no longer had a wave for Gina in the town. Fidel still came in the odd time, with the hoods he used to meet in private above the shop. They sat at a table like the soldiers and after they left Eamonn found cigarettes ground into the carpet, black molten holes on the upholstery. The Catholics had drifted away too, not wanting to be seen to condone their sheltering of the McGeowns. Only Jimmy still came in every evening. Because he wasn’t right in the head, Gina said.