She crossed herself and patted my arm. "And you're after coming all the way from England to find out who done it? Aren't you great? God bless you, young fella."

"The old heretic," I said, when we got outside. Mrs. Fitzgerald had cheered up my day immensely. "I hope I have that much zip when I'm eighty-eight."

We knocked off just before six and went to the local pub-Mooney's, next to the shop-to watch the news. We had only covered a small part of the estate, but we had a handle on the general atmosphere, and it had been a long day; the meeting with Cooper seemed to have happened at least forty-eight hours before. I had a dizzy urge to keep going until we got to my old road-see if Jamie's mother answered their door, what Peter's brothers and sisters looked like now, who was living in my old room-but I knew this would not be a good idea.

We had timed it well: as I carried our coffee over to the table, the barman turned up the volume on the TV and the news came on with a sweep of synthetic music. Katy was the lead story; the studio presenters looked suitably grave, their voices vibrating heartrendingly at the end of each sentence to indicate tragedy. The arty Irish Times shot flashed up in a corner of the screen.

"The young girl found dead yesterday on the controversial archaeological site at Knocknaree has been identified as Katharine Devlin, aged twelve," intoned the male presenter. Either the color on the TV set was off or he had used too much fake tan; his face was orange, the whites of his eyes spookily bright. The old guys at the bar stirred, tilting their faces slowly up to the screen, their glasses clicking down. "Katharine had been missing from her nearby home since early Tuesday morning. Police have confirmed that the death is suspicious, and have appealed to anyone with information to come forward." The tip-line number came up across the bottom of the screen, white lettering on a blue banner. "Orla Manahan is live at the scene."

Cut to a blonde with frozen hair and an overhanging nose, standing in front of the altar stone, which didn't appear to be doing anything that demanded live coverage. People had already started leaving tributes propped against it: flowers wrapped in colored cellophane, a pink teddy bear. In the background a stray piece of crime-scene tape, overlooked by Sophie's team, fluttered forlornly from a tree.

"This is the place where, just yesterday morning, little Katy Devlin's body was found. In spite of her youth, Katy was a well-known figure in the small, close-knit community of Knocknaree. She had just been awarded a place at the prestigious Royal Ballet School, where she was due to begin her studies in only a few weeks. Today, local residents were devastated at the tragic death of the little girl who was all of their pride and joy."

A shaky handheld camera on an old woman with a flowery headscarf, outside Lowry's shop. "Ah, it's awful." A long pause while she looked down and shook her head, her mouth working; a guy on a bike went past behind her, gawking at the camera. "It's only terrible. We're all saying prayers for the family. How could anyone want to harm that gorgeous wee girl?" There was a low, angry murmur from the old men at the bar.

Back to the blonde. "But this may not be the first violent death Knocknaree has seen. Thousands of years ago, this stone"-she swept her arm out, like an estate agent displaying a fitted kitchen-"was a ceremonial altar where archaeologists say the Druids may have practiced human sacrifice. This afternoon, however, detectives said there was no evidence that Katy's death was the work of a religious cult."

Cut to O'Kelly, in front of an imposing piece of cardboard with a police seal stamped on it. He was wearing a vile checked jacket that, on camera, seemed to ripple and heave of its own accord. He cleared his throat and went through our list, nonexistent dead livestock and all. Cassie held out a hand, not taking her eyes off the screen, and I found a fiver.

The orange presenter again. "And Knocknaree holds yet another mystery. In 1984, two local children…" The screen filled up with those overused school pictures: Peter grinning wickedly from under his hair, Jamie-she hated photos-giving the photographer a dubious, humoring-the-adults half-smile.

"Here we go," I said, trying to make it sound light and wry.

Cassie took a sip of her coffee. "Are you going to tell O'Kelly?" she asked.

I had been waiting for this, and I knew all the reasons why she had to ask, but still it hit me with a jolt. I glanced at the guys at the bar; they were intent on the screen. "No," I said. "No. I'd be off the case. I want to work this one, Cass."

She nodded, slowly. "I know. If he finds out, though."

If he found out, there was a pretty good chance that both of us would be reverted back to uniform, or at the very least thrown off the squad. I had been trying not to think about this. "He won't," I said. "How could he? And if he does, we'll both say you had no idea."

"He wouldn't believe that for a second. And anyway that's not the point."

Fuzzy old footage of a cop with a hyperactive German shepherd, plunging into the wood. A diver pulling himself out of the river, shaking his head. "Cassie," I said. "I know what I'm asking. But please; I need to do this. I won't fuck it up."

I saw her lashes flicker and realized that my tone had come out more desperate than I intended. "We don't even know for sure that there's a link," I said, more quietly. "And if there is, I could end up remembering something that's useful to the investigation. Please, Cass. Back me up on this one."

She was silent for a moment, drinking her coffee and gazing thoughtfully at the TV. "Is there any chance that a really determined reporter could…?"

"No," I said briskly. I had, as you would expect, thought about this a lot. Even the file didn't mention my new name or my new school, and when we moved my father gave the police my grandmother's address; she died when I was about twenty, and the family sold her house. "My parents are unlisted, and my number's listed under Heather Quinn-"

"-And these days your name's Rob. We should be fine."

The "we," and the practical, considering tone-as if this were just another routine complication, in the same category as a reluctant witness or a suspect gone on the run-warmed me. "If it all goes horribly wrong, I'll let you fend off the paparazzi," I said.

"Cool. I'll learn karate."

On the screen the old footage was over, and the blonde was working up to a big finish. "…But, for now, all the people of Knocknaree can do is wait…and hope." They panned to the altar stone for a long moment, poignantly, and then cut back to the studio, and the orange presenter started giving the latest update on some endless depressing tribunal.

We dumped our stuff at Cassie's and went for a walk on the beach. I love Sandymount strand. It's pretty enough on the rare summery afternoons, brochure-blue sky and all the girls in camisoles and red shoulders, but for some reason I love it most of all on your bog-standard Irish days, when wind blows rain-spatter in your face and everything blurs into elusive, Puritan half-tones: gray-white clouds, gray-green sea off on the horizon, great sweep of bleached-fawn sand edged with a scatter of broken shells, wide abstract curves of dull silver where the tide is coming in unevenly. Cassie was wearing sage-green cords and her big russet duffel coat, and the wind was turning her nose red. A large earnest girl in shorts and a baseball cap-probably an American student-was jogging on the sand in front of us; up on the promenade, an underage mother in a tracksuit heaved along a twin stroller.