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Back Trespasses Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. COVER
  2. HALF-TITLE PAGE
  3. BY THE SAME AUTHOR
  4. DEDICATION PAGE
  5. TITLE PAGE
  6. 2015
  7. THE IRISH FOR NO
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. DÚIL
  15. 7
  16. 8
  17. 9
  18. 10
  19. 11
  20. 12
  21. CHIAROSCURO
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. IN CALVARY’S FLOW
  29. 19
  30. 20
  31. 21
  32. 22
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. WHEN I MOVE TO THE SKY
  36. 25
  37. 26
  38. 27
  39. 28
  40. 29
  41. 30
  42. 2015
  43. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  44. A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

What’s going on with you and Victor? she said.

He slugged from the whiskey. I’ve taken on a case of which he doesn’t approve.

What case?

Three boys who were picked out of a line-up by a witness who could only be described as unreliable.

What did they do?

What are they accused of, I think you mean. Murdering a member of the RUC, he said. The slosh of whiskey again, a pop as he pulled the bottle from his mouth.

Why is Victor so angry?

He was one of the first reporters on the scene on Bloody Friday. Said it smelled like a butcher’s shop.

Jesus.

Quite. It rather hardened his views on militant Republicanism. So he doesn’t like that I take on certain cases.

He put the bottle on the nightstand and lit another cigarette. Sometimes I hate this place, he said.

CHIAROSCURO

CHIAROSCURO

13

13

Davy was waiting by her car, his satchel on the bonnet. He was running in slow motion, arms and legs cutting through the air like the blades of a windmill. He saw Cushla and began moving towards her. Steve Austin, astronaut, he said. A man barely alive.

You’re like Three Legs of Mann.

I saw one of them on an Isle of Man 10p.

She unlocked her car and he hopped into the back seat.

Miss Lavery, a man’s voice said behind her. It sounded so formal she thought it was Gerry Devlin pretending to be the headmaster, and she let out a guffaw and swung round. Bradley was a few feet away, the waistcoat of his suit doing an admirable job of containing the paunch above his belt. I hope you know what you’re getting into, he said.

I’m just giving the child a lift.

It’s too much. Sitting with him at break. The lifts. The lunches.

The dinner ladies must have told him she’d paid for Davy to eat school meals for the rest of the term. She had asked Bradley if the school would cover it, but he had turned it into a conversation about Betty McGeown’s ineptitude as a mother.

I’m just doing my job, she said.

Bradley was looking at her car. Davy had wound the window down and was turning his head slowly, eyes coming to rest on them.

Look, I’d better go, she said, and got into the driver’s seat. Dear God, Davy, what are you doing? she whispered.

Focusing very hard with my bionic eye.

Close the window.

Right, miss. One of his eyes was almost closed, the other staring at her. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, he said. We have the technology.

She started to laugh so he kept going. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man, he said. Better, stronger, faster.