Mandy blinked. “God, I wouldn’t have a clue. Himself and your old fella don’t get on; I’d say it might be that. Does it matter, sure? You’re not round here any more, you never see him…”

I said, “Rosie dumped me, Mandy. She dumped me flat on my arse, out of the clear blue sky, and I’ve never known why. If there’s an explanation, somewhere out there, I’d love to know what it is. I’d like to know if there was something, anything, I could’ve done to make things turn out different.”

I gave it plenty of the strong-but-suffering, and Mandy’s mouth went soft with sympathy. “Ah, Francis… Rosie never gave a tinker’s damn what her da thought of you. You know that.”

“Maybe not. But if she was worried about anything, or hiding something from me, or if she was scared of someone… How livid did he use to get with her, exactly?”

Mandy looked baffled or wary, I couldn’t tell which. “How d’you mean, like?”

“Mr. Daly had a temper,” I said. “When he first found out Rosie was seeing me, the whole Place heard him roaring. I always wondered if it stopped there, or if… well. If he used to hit her.”

Her hand went to her mouth. “Jaysus, Francis! Did she say something?”

“Not to me, but she wouldn’t have, not unless she wanted me punching her da’s lights out. I thought she might have talked to you and Imelda, though.”

“Ah, no. God, no. She never said a word about anything like that. I think she would’ve, but… you never know for definite, sure you don’t?” Mandy thought, smoothing a blue school-uniform tunic in her lap. “I’d say he never laid a finger on her,” she said, in the end. “And I’m not just saying that because you want to hear it, now. Half Mr. Daly’s problem was that he never copped that Rosie had grown up, d’you know what I mean? That Saturday when she called round to me, after he’d caught her coming home late-the three of us were meant to be going to the Apartments that night, and Rosie couldn’t go because, I’m not joking you, her da had taken her keys away. Like she was a kid, instead of a grown woman putting her wages on the table every week. He said he was locking the door at eleven sharp, and if she wasn’t in by then, she could sleep on the street-and you know yourself, by eleven the Apartments were only getting started. See what I mean? When he got annoyed with her, he didn’t give her the slaps; he sent her to sit in the corner, the way I’d do with one of my little young ones if she was bold.”

And just like that, Mr. Daly no longer had the spotlight all to himself, getting a search warrant for his garden was no longer top priority, and snuggling up in Mandy’s cozy little corner of domestic bliss wasn’t as much fun any more. If Rosie hadn’t come out the front door of her house, it didn’t have to be because she was dodging me, or because Daddy had caught her in the act and had a melodrama moment involving a blunt object. It could have been just because he had left her no choice. Front doors were locked at night; back doors had a bolt on the inside, so you could go to the jacks shed without needing a key or locking yourself out. Without her keys, it didn’t matter whether Rosie was running away from me or into my arms: she had had to go out the back door, over walls and down the gardens. The odds were spreading out, away from Number 3.

And the chances of pulling prints off that case were going down. If Rosie had known she was going to be monkeying around with garden walls, she would have hidden the case in advance, ready to pick up on her way out of town. If someone had got his hands on her, along the way, he might never even have known the suitcase existed.

Mandy was watching me, a little worried, trying to work out if I got what she meant. “Makes sense,” I said. “I can’t see Rosie taking well to being sent to the corner, though. Was she planning on trying something? Nicking her keys back from her da, maybe?”

“Not a thing. That’s what tipped us off something was up, sure. Me and Imelda said to her, ‘Fuck him, come out with us anyway, if he locks you out you can sleep here.’ But she said no, she wanted to keep him sweet. We said, ‘Why would you be arsed?’-like you said, it wasn’t her style. And Rosie said, ‘Sure, it’s not for much longer.’ That got our attention, all right. The pair of us dropped everything and jumped on her, wanting to know what she was on about, but she wouldn’t say. She acted like she just meant her da would give the keys back soon enough, but both of us knew it was more than that. We didn’t know what, exactly; just that something big was happening.”

“You didn’t try for more details? What she had planned, when, whether it was with me?”

“God, yeah. We went on at her for ages-I was poking her in the arm and all, and Imelda smacked her with a pillow, trying to make her talk- but she just ignored us till we gave up and went back to getting ready. She was… Jaysus.” Mandy laughed, a soft, startled little catch, under her breath; her brisk hands on the washing had slowed to a stop. “We were just through there, in that dining room-that used to be my room. I was the only one of us had my own room; we always met up there. Me and Imelda were doing our hair, backcombing away-God, the state of us, and the turquoise eye shadow, d’you remember? We thought we were the Bangles and Cyndi Lauper and Bananarama all rolled into one.”

“You were beautiful,” I said, and meant it. “All three of you. I’ve never seen prettier.”

She wrinkled her nose at me-“Flattery’ll get you nowhere”-but her eyes were still somewhere else. “We were slagging Rosie, asking her was she joining the nuns, telling her she’d look lovely in a habit and was it because she fancied Father McGrath… Rosie was lying on my bed, looking up at the ceiling and biting her nail-you know the way she used to do? Just the one fingernail?”

Right index fingernail; she bit at it when she was thinking hard. Those last couple of months, while we made our plans, she’d drawn blood a few times. “I remember,” I said.

“I was watching her, in the mirror on my dressing table. It was Rosie, I knew her since the lot of us were babas together, and all of a sudden she looked like a new person. Like she was older than us; like she was already halfway gone, somewhere else. I felt like we should give her something-a good-bye card, or a St. Christopher medal, maybe. Something for a safe journey.”

I asked, “Did you mention this to anyone?”

“No way,” Mandy said, fast, with a snap in her voice. “No way would I have squelt on her. You know better than that.”

She was sitting up straighter, starting to bristle. “I do, babe,” I said, smiling across at her. “I’m only double-checking, out of habit. Don’t mind me.”

“I talked to Imelda, all right. We both figured yous were eloping. We thought it was dead romantic-teenagers, you know yourself… But I never said a word to anyone else, not even after. We were on your side, Francis. We wanted yous to be happy.”

For one split second I felt like if I turned around I would see them, in the next room: three girls, restless on that edge where everything was just about to happen, sparking with turquoise and electricity and possibilities. “Thanks, honey,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

“I haven’t a clue why she changed her mind. I’d tell you if I did. The two of yous were perfect for each other; I thought for sure…”

Her voice trailed off. “Yeah,” I said. “So did I.”

Mandy said softly, “God, Francis…” Her hands were still holding the same little uniform tunic, not moving, and there was a long invincible current of sadness under her voice. “God, it’s an awful long time ago, isn’t it?”

The road was quiet, only the singsong murmur of one of the little girls explaining something to the other, upstairs, and the rush of wind sweeping a gust of fine rain past the windows. “It is,” I said. “I don’t know how it got to be so long.”

I didn’t tell her. Let my ma do it; she would enjoy every second. We hugged good-bye at the door and I kissed Mandy’s cheek and promised to call round again soon. She smelled of sweet safe things I hadn’t smelt in years, Pears soap and custard creams and cheap perfume.