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At last, still holding his hand, she said, ‘I’ve turned this over in my mind so often. Over and over and over.’ She didn’t look at him. She didn’t want to see those agate-brown eyes.

‘And?’

‘And you know what the answer is, John. I can’t leave any more than you can stay.’

‘What if I begged you?’

‘Don’t beg me. Don’t ever beg me to do anything. You’re too proud a man for that.’

‘What if I asked you to marry me?’

She couldn’t answer. Her mouth puckered and the tears started to run down her cheeks. He stood up and tried to take hold of her, but she flapped her hands and waved him away. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Just don’t.’

‘Katie, the last thing in the whole world I want to do is hurt you.’

‘You can’t help it,’ she said. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s life. It’s what life does to us.’

She stood up and went into the kitchen, tearing off a sheet of paper towel to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. John followed her and laid his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t push it off, but she didn’t turn round, either.

‘Look,’ said John, ‘I’ll stay at ErinChem a while longer. You’re right. I haven’t even given it a chance. Maybe I was a little sore about your fixing it up for me.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You know what you have to do. I shouldn’t have tried to make you stay here in Ireland. I was being selfish.’

John put his arms around her and held her close. He kissed the crown of her hair and said, ‘I love you, Katie. I adore you. I will never find anybody else like you, ever.’

‘Yes, you will. And you’ll marry her and have fifty-five kids and you’ll live happily ever after.’

It was then that John started to cry too. ‘Oh, shit, Katie. What am I going to do?’

Katie tore off another sheet of paper towel and dabbed his eyes. ‘You’re going to go, John. You know you are. Like you said, you have to.’

She smiled at him, and gently touched his cheek. ‘It’s going to hurt, boy,’ she said in her strongest Southside accent. ‘But only for a while.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, trying to get his breath back.

‘Listen,’ she told him, ‘I think I’ll go over and see my father for a bit. I won’t be too long, only a couple of hours. The last ferry’s at ten o’clock anyhow.’

‘Okay,’ said John. ‘Maybe that’s a good idea. I’ll see you when you get back.’

She kissed him, and then she kissed him again. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to be with you,’ she said, very softly, her face so close that she couldn’t even focus on him. ‘It’s just that if I stay here, I’ll have to be brave.’

She took the car ferry from Carrigaloe Pier across the river to Glenbrook. The crossing took only four minutes and it saved a circuitous half-hour drive on the N25 and N29. She stood by the railing with her face turned towards the setting sun and her eyes closed. In fact, she was praying.
Oh dear God, why are you doing this to me?

She had called her father in advance to let him know that she was coming. As soon as she turned into his driveway and parked behind his old brown Volvo estate, he opened up the front door and waved. She climbed the front steps and gave him a hug. He was looking so much better since he had announced that he and Ailish were going to be married. His eyes looked brighter and he seemed to be standing up straighter, as if the pain that he had felt after the death of Katie’s mother was easing at last.

Ailish appeared from the kitchen and hugged her, too. She was wearing a splashy summer dress in yellows and reds and a necklace of giant red beads.

‘Well, to what do we owe the pleasure?’ said Katie’s father. ‘We only just saw you on Sunday. This is an honour!’

‘Have you eaten, Katie?’ asked Ailish.

‘No, I haven’t yet. It’s been one of those days – as if
every
day isn’t one of those days.’

‘I should have brought that lamb stew I made this morning,’ said Ailish. ‘I was going to freeze it for the weekend so I left it cooling off at home. I only live two minutes away and it wouldn’t take long to heat up.’

‘That’s a great idea,’ said Katie’s father. ‘Why don’t you nip back home and fetch it? I think I could do considerable justice to a bowl of lamb stew. How about you, Katie?’

‘I’m not all that hungry, Da, to tell you the truth.’

‘Oh, you wait till you smell it! Here, Ailish, here’s my car keys.’

Katie said, ‘Really, Ailish, you needn’t trouble yourself. I wasn’t going to eat tonight anyway.’

‘Oh, behave!’ said Katie’s father. ‘There’s nobody comes round to my house now without being fed. Ailish has made sure of that, haven’t you, darling? You should taste her sausage coddle!’

‘All right,’ said Katie. ‘But look, why don’t you take my car? It’ll save me having to move it.’

She opened her bag and handed Ailish her keys. Ailish said, ‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course. It belongs to the Garda and it’s fully insured for anybody to drive it.’

Ailish said, ‘All right, then, thanks. I won’t be long!’

When she had left, Katie and her father went into the living room.

‘Drink?’ asked Katie’s father.

‘I wouldn’t say no to a glass of red wine if you have one.’

He stopped and frowned at her. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her.

‘What do you mean, “What’s wrong?” Nothing’s wrong.’

‘You don’t normally come across to see me on the spur of the moment like this.’

‘Oh, I can’t pay a visit to my own father without something being wrong?’

He came up to her and laid his hand on her arm. ‘You’re upset about something,’ he said.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because I used to be a detective inspector, that’s what, and I can read people’s body language. You’re tense, you’re fidgety, and you’re dying to tell me something but at the same time you’re not at all sure that you want to because if you do you’ll burst into tears.’

Katie said, ‘I’m not going to cry, Da. Crying isn’t going to change anything.’

‘It’s your John, isn’t it?’ he asked her.

‘Yes.’

He nodded and said, ‘I thought so. I could tell that, when you came round on Sunday. He kept saying how happy he was, but I could sense that he was very stressed. I mentioned it to Ailish afterwards.’

‘He wants to go back to America. He says he’ll never settle here. He wants me to go with him. He even asked me to marry him.’

‘So why don’t you?’

Katie sat down. ‘Come on, Da, we’ve been through this before. There’s something in life called a sense of duty and unfortunately I’ve been born with it. I probably inherited it from you.’

Katie’s father looked at her sadly. ‘There’s something in this life called happiness, too, but not many of us get to enjoy it. I was lucky enough to find great happiness with your mother, and I’ve been extra lucky a second time to find it with Ailish. You should grab it while you have the chance.’

‘How about that glass of wine?’

Katie and her father had been sitting and talking together for nearly half an hour before Katie glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece and said, ‘Ailish is taking her time.’

‘I think her daughter’s staying with her at the moment. They probably got chatting.’

‘How old is her daughter?’

‘Thirty-one. And she’s a big girl, too. Not surprising, with Ailish for a mother. That woman never stops putting food in front of you.’

‘Well, you be careful. I don’t want a fatso for a father.’

Another ten minutes went past but there was still no sign of Ailish. Katie’s father said, ‘I hope she hasn’t had a puncture. That hill where she lives is absolutely riddled with potholes.’

‘Give her a call on her mobile,’ said Katie.

Her father picked up his iPhone and touched Ailish’s number, but immediately they heard a ringtone in the kitchen. Next he tried her home number, twice, but nobody answered.

‘So where the devil has she got to?’ he demanded. ‘It’s only a minute there and a minute back. I think I’d best go look for her.’

‘Why don’t I go?’ said Katie. ‘It’s beginning to get dark now and you know what your eyesight is like.’

Katie’s father took his car keys from the table in the hallway and gave them to her. ‘Give me a call if she’s had a flat tyre or something else is holding her up.’

‘Of course, Da.’

She climbed into her father’s Volvo estate and gave him a wave as she backed out of the driveway. The sun had gone down behind the houses now and the sky was damson-coloured. Katie couldn’t help hearing John’s words in her head. ‘
It’s not you, darling. It’s Ireland
.’

Ailish lived less than a kilometre away, at the top of a hill overlooking the river. Katie had only just turned into her road when she saw flashing blue and red lights up ahead. Patrol cars, and an ambulance.
Oh God
, she thought.
What’s happened up here?
She changed down and accelerated up the hill until she reached the first patrol car. She parked halfway up the kerb and opened her door.

A guard came over to her with his hand raised. ‘Nothing to see here, ma’am.’

‘Detective Superintendent Maguire, from Anglesea Street,’ she told him, and showed him her badge.

‘Oh, okay. A car’s gone off the road, that’s all, and into somebody’s garden.’

She followed him up to the scene of the accident. Deep tyre tracks ran diagonally across the grass verge, showing where the car had left the road. It had crashed through a low brick wall and plunged down a steeply sloping garden, hitting the front of a bungalow. The impact had been enough to damage the brickwork and dislodge one of the double-glazed windows.

Katie saw at once that the car was hers. The driver’s door was open and a paramedic was kneeling beside it, while a second paramedic was standing close by. Three more gardaí were standing around, talking to the owners of the bungalow, a couple in their mid-fifties, and a tall, lugubrious-looking man who was probably their next-door neighbour.

Katie stepped over a flower bed and made her way around the back of the car. She went up to the driver’s door and saw that Ailish was still sitting behind the wheel. The airbag had deployed, but Ailish was slumped forward with her face turned sideways so that she was staring at Katie with her eyes wide open. She was deathly pale except for a red mark on her forehead where the airbag had hit her.

‘Detective Superintendent Maguire,’ said Katie, as the paramedic looked up at her. ‘I know this woman. In fact, this is my car. She just borrowed it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said the paramedic, standing up. He was a short, stubby young man, with a very slight squint, so that Katie wasn’t sure if he was looking straight at her or not. ‘I can’t tell the cause of death for certain, but I’d say it was probably cardiac arrest. She was already dead when we arrived.’

‘Aren’t you going to get her out of there?’

‘Her feet are trapped under the pedals. We’re waiting on the fire brigade.’

Katie stood and looked at Ailish and Ailish stared back at her with her pale blue eyes, unblinking. Ailish with her braided hair and her splashy summer dress and her necklace of big glass beads. Her arm was lying across her lap and her watch was still working. It was almost impossible for Katie to believe that this had actually happened. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how her father was going to take it, or how she was going to tell him.
There’s something in this life called happiness, but not many of us get to enjoy it
.

After a few seconds she turned away and stepped back over the flower bed. Two of the gardaí were crouched down now, examining the back of the car with their flashlights. The rear bumper was split and scuffed, and there were three deep dents in the bodywork.

‘All that damage is new,’ said Katie. ‘There wasn’t a scratch on this car when she took it away.’

‘When was that exactly?’

‘About forty minutes ago. She looks after my father, who lives at West View House. She borrowed it to go back to her own house to fetch a stew for us, for supper.’

‘But it was totally undamaged before then?’

Katie looked at the split in the bumper. ‘I’d say that she was rammed by another vehicle, and very hard.’

‘So what? You think this could have been deliberate, like? I mean, she could have suffered a heart attack and stopped unexpected and whoever was coming up behind her crashed into her but they didn’t want to stay around when they saw her go careering down into this garden. They could have been over the limit, like. That’s the usual pattern.’

‘No, this car has been violently rear-ended more than once. Even if you’re drunk you don’t do that.’

‘Road rage?’

‘Possible, but not very likely. Why would anybody have road rage halfway up an empty street in Monkstown?’

‘But why would they do it deliberate? It doesn’t make sense.’

Katie looked around. ‘Were there any witnesses? Did anybody see this happen?’

‘No. They was either in their gardens or indoors eating or watching the telly.’

‘All right. But I don’t want this car moved until the technicians have taken a look at it. I’ll call them myself. Make sure that you tape it off and that nobody touches it.’

A fire appliance arrived, with its diesel engine roaring and lights flashing. Katie climbed up the garden steps and went back to her father’s car. She sat in the driver’s seat and called the Technical Bureau. When she had done that, she sat for a while and tried to think what she was going to say to her father.

It was going to be difficult enough to tell him that Ailish was dead, only two days after they had toasted his announcement that they were going to be married. But her father had been a police officer, too, and after he had recovered from the initial shock he would be urgently asking her the same question she was now asking herself.

Who would have deliberately rammed Ailish? She was a 64-year-old widow, a cook, and a home help. Who could have wanted to do a woman like that any harm?

The only conceivable reason she had been targeted was because she had been driving Katie’s car.

Michael Gerrety was sitting in his basement office at Amber’s when Trisha came down the spiral staircase from the shop and said, ‘Michael, there’s somebody up here wants to talk to you. It’s a girl.’