“Aunt Sandra gave me them, years ago. They say…‘they say’…they never say who they are, but…they say if you soak the bloodstone in a certain kind of water, for a certain amount of time…it can turn the clouds the color of blood. The other thing is better though…they say…if you clasp it in the right way, it can make you completely invisible.”

And with that, Emily slid back down in the bed and pulled the cover right over her face, but not quite so fast that I didn’t see a quiver in her lips, a glisten in her eyes, the bloodless pall of fear in her cheeks. I stood there a moment, and she poked one hand above the covers, just far enough to show the rings, and gave me a little kid’s closed-hand wave.

Sleep well, I thought. Whatever the hell it is, it seems to be coming down hardest on you.

I shut the light out before I left.

In the living room, Sandra and Shane Howard and Denis Finnegan were sitting around the big table, talking in murmurs; they went quiet and looked up at me as I approached. Sandra made an expectant face, as if waiting for a report. I nodded to her in reassurance. Then I took the mass card out of my pocket and laid it open on the table, and said “Who was Stephen Casey?” There was a satisfying reaction: Shane’s jaw fell open, and Denis flashed an urgent look at Sandra, who was staring at the table. Each of them knew. None of them would answer. I leant my hands on the table. I didn’t have to fake it.

“You people are living in a dream if you think I can do anything for you,” I said. “I found Emily without your help; keeping her safe-and your precious family’s reputation intact-isn’t going to be as easy. A case like this, it tends to shine its light into corners you thought would never be exposed. But if you’re hell-bent on keeping all your secrets, fine, just be prepared to take your chances with blackmail, maybe even jail time for Emily. Let me know what you decide-I can’t hang around-and neither will our good friends the Guards.”

I WAS HALFWAY ACROSS THE WHITE ROTUNDA OF ROWAN House when Sandra Howard caught up with me. She grabbed my sleeve and pulled me around, and I shook her hand away. She looked at me as if I had slapped her.

“What gives you the right to talk to us like that? Who the fuck do you think you are?” she said. She stepped in and raised her hand to slap me. I caught her wrist and held it.

“I thought I could trust you,” I said. “I don’t like being lied to.”

I let her wrist go. She held her hand in space for a moment, then reached for the back of my head, and her eyes widened and her lips parted as she pulled herself close to me and pushed her face at mine, and her smell was all salt earth and spice, and I could feel the blood in my chest, in my throat, and we were kissing, her hands in my hair, pressing my mouth to hers, her tongue on mine. She put my hand on her breast, and ran hers between my legs; we were pulling at each other’s clothes, biting each other’s lips. “Come on,” she said, and maybe she had a room in mind, but we didn’t get further than the stairs; she turned on the wide steps and pushed me down and lowered herself on me with a moan, and we fucked beneath a portrait of Dr. John Howard, and our cries echoed around the hall like memories, and when we finished, her eyes were wet on my brow.

“What is it?” I said.

She shook her head and put a finger to my lips and smiled.

“I’m sorry, Ed. I’m sorry Shane has drawn you into all this. Drawn you in here.”

She wouldn’t say any more. We fixed ourselves up and stood in the hall, not looking one another in the eye. I had a metallic taste in my mouth; I drew my knuckle across my lips and it came away smeared with blood; Sandra laughed and did the same. It was the kind of sex you spend your life dreaming about and doing your best to avoid, the kind that, even if you almost always regret it, makes you feel like you’re truly alive. There was a sound from across the hall, as if someone was approaching; when no one came, I thought it more likely that someone had been watching, then slipped away.

Sandra came out with me to my car. The mist seemed to have cleared a little, at least enough to make out bonfires south toward the mountains; the damp night air was thick with smoke. Sandra leant against the roof.

“You don’t have to know everything, Ed,” she said. “What happened twenty years ago may not be relevant today.”

“You thought it was in the case of Jessica. You think it is for Jonathan and Dr. Rock.”

“And what, we should share everything with you and let you decide what’s important?”

“That’s right,” I said, smiling because she was, smiles as steady and false as masks.

“And what does that make you? More father confessor than detective.”

“Call it what you will,” I said. “I’ll find it out anyway. What happened here didn’t start last week, and it’s not going to stop overnight. All you can do is slow it down. Once it’s begun, you can’t stop it. Unless you want to sacrifice Emily and Jonathan. Because they’re the ones who are suffering for your silence.”

This time I let the slap come. Sandra Howard hit me full across the face, and stared at me, trembling, blinking back tears, and then turned and walked back up the steps and inside the pale granite castle and closed the great doors of Rowan House behind her.

I got a number for David Manuel from directory inquiries, and rang on the drive down to Woodpark. Manuel’s wife answered, and was reluctant to hand the call over-I could hear conversation and laughter in the background-but I kept insisting until he came to the phone.

“David Manuel.”

His voice was quiet and precise.

“My name is Loy, I’m a private detective, employed by the Howard family. I found Emily Howard-I believe she’s a client of yours.”

Manuel said nothing.

“I’d like to talk to you about her, and about Jonathan.”

“I can’t tell you anything about what they’ve told me, that’s privileged.”

“Of course. But you might be a help in other ways. In what you know about the Howard family, for example.”

“I told you, that’s confidential-”

“Not all of it may be. Not all of it has to be. You’re not a doctor or a priest; you’re not bound by any real laws, after all. And they’re both in danger, you know, Emily and Jonathan.”

“In danger? Are you trying to scare me, Mr. Loy?”

“Maybe just a little. I’m certainly scared on their behalf. And I don’t scare so easily. They’d both be in jail if I told the Guards what I know. Can I come and visit you now?”

“Now? I have people here, I can’t just…no, that’s out of the question.”

“Tomorrow then.”

“I have a client at nine.”

“I’ll be at your door at eight.”

I ended the call before he could object.

The Woodpark Inn had a bar with lino on the floor and tables and chairs laid out and some unspeakable celebrity talent show at maximum volume on the television and fluorescent lights glaring and a dartboard and fifty or so people who wouldn’t see fifty again drinking pints and whiskey and lemonades and arduously not smoking. They looked like they’d been coming here all their lives, and they probably had. The lounge was relatively quiet: couples with nothing to say to each other and subdued groups of ill-assorted women in their forties sat beneath the skeletons and pumpkin balloons like adults in their children’s bedrooms, wondering how they’d grown too old to enjoy the action but not old enough to feel relaxed about missing it. There was no sign of Sean Moon, or the Reillys, or Brock Taylor. The action-the Halloween Battle of the Bands-was taking place in a hall that must originally have housed dances, maybe bingo nights. The bouncer had a shaved head and a big black mustache; he looked at me and smiled and said “Too old” in an Eastern European accent. I said, “Record company.” He inclined his head toward the racket that was emerging, looked back at me in a skeptical kind of way, then shrugged elaborately, as if human folly was beyond his control, and let me pass.