“He loses money on the estate?”

“That’s what he says.”

We went into the house and this time I noted that the door was unlocked.

“Farmers are always complaining. That’s what they do best,” I said.

“Well, as long as he doesn’t put up my rent.”

“He wouldn’t do that to his sister-in-law.”

“You’d be surprised what men do when they’re desperate.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

She nodded and brushed the hair from her face.

A harsh face. Youthful – but when she was older, bitterness would make her pinched and thin-lipped and shrewish.

“Can I help make anything?” I asked.

She smiled, almost laughed again. “No, no. There’ll be no man in my kitchen. Settle yourself down in the living room. I’ll get you a Harp.”

I sat on the rattan sofa and sipped the can of Harp. There were a few novels on the book shelf: Alexander Kent, Alastair MacLean, Patrick O’Brian. She’d got rid of Martin’s clothes and his suitcase, but she’d kept some of his books.

“Mind if I use your phone?” I called into the kitchen.

“Go ahead. Although the reception down here is shocking. It sounds like you’re phoning from the moon.”

I called the station, asked for Crabbie.

“McCrabban speaking,” Crabbie said.

Emma had the radio on in the kitchen but I lowered my voice anyway.

“Mate, listen, it’s me. Do me a favour and see if there’s anything brewing with Finance and Embezzlement or the Fraud Squad on Sir Harry McAlpine or John DeLorean or both of them.”

“John DeLorean?”

“Aye, and Harry McAlpine.”

“Well, the DeLorean factory’s a great big money pit, but I’ve never heard of any actual fraud—”

“Check it out, will you? And don’t forget McAlpine. The DeLorean factory is on his land. Some kind of deal with the Revenue Service, he says.”

Crabbie hesitated. There was static on the phone line.

“Did you get that?” I asked.

“I got it. You want to me to call Special Branch and the Fraud Squad.”

“Yes. What’s the problem?”

“Sean, an inquiry like that will get passed up the chain. I thought you were specifically warned off involving yourself with Sir Harry McAlpine. Two or three days from now when this arrives on the Chief Constable’s desk you’ll be getting a bloody rocket!”

“Goes with the territory, Crabbie. We’re firing blanks here anyway.”

“It doesn’t matter if we’re firing blanks, Sean. The McAlpine case is not our case and the O’Rourke case has been yellowed,” he said, his voice rising a little.

“I know, mate, look, just do it, will ya?”

He sighed. “Of course.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“No problem.”

I hung up.

“Everything okay?” Emma shouted from the kitchen.

“Aye. Everything’s fine.”

I made another quick phone call to Interflora and had them deliver flowers to Gloria at the DeLorean plant. It was thirty-five quid, but it’s always smart to keep the sheilas sweet.

Emma came up behind me.

“Ordering flowers?”

“Me mother’s birthday.”

“You are such a dutiful son.”

“Aye, I am.”

“The stock’s on. It’ll take an hour. Do you ride? I borrow Stella from Canny McDonagh down by the sheddings. She’s got a young hunter called Mallarky that needs a run or two.”

“I haven’t been on a Dob for fifteen years.”

“You don’t forget.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.”

We put on coats and she lent me Martin’s riding boots.

Canny McDonagh wasn’t home, but Emma made free and easy with the farm and in the stable block she harnessed and saddled both horses. Mallarky was a big hunter but he had just gorged himself on oats and was no bother at all.

We rode over the fields till we reached a beach on the Irish Sea side of Islandmagee. She galloped Stella and I got Mallarky up to a canter. Cora barked happily along side.

When they’d had a good run we dismounted them and walked them in the surf.

It was colder now. The beach was empty. Emma threw a stick to the dog and she ran to fetch it in the water.

I looked north. You could see up the glens to the Atlantic Ocean. The wild deep blue of it chilling my retinas from here.

The sun began to set behind the cloud banks to the west.

“Look! There!” she said.

A massive gorse fire was burning on a hill in Scotland.

“Jesus, will you look at that.”

“Sometimes the heather will burn for days,” she said.

We watched it until the set sun. It was getting dark now.

“We better get these horses back, don’t you think? I’m not that confident about riding at night.”

“Yes. All right.”

We rode back and Cora barked and Canny McDonagh still wasn’t home, so she left him a note, telling him what she had done and that Mallarky had taken the canter well.

Mussels and country bread at the kitchen table.

She lit a paraffin lamp.

“Do you fancy something stronger?” she asked, when I finished a second Harp.

“Poteen?”

“You won’t tell the excise, will you?”

“Are you joking? Cops and the excise are natural enemies.”

She took an earthenware jug from under the sink.

“Everybody distils their own round here,” she explained.

She poured me an honest measure and we clinked glasses.

We drank and it was evil rough stuff, around 120 proof.

We both coughed. She poured us another.

“Yikes, do you have anything to cut this with?” I asked, knocking back shot number two.

“There’s orange juice in the fridge.”

I went to the fridge, looked out a couple of tall glasses and made us a couple of screwdrivers.

She drank hers and moved closer to me on the couch.

“You’re not married, are you?” she asked, looking at me with those azure eyes and those full lips with the little dent in the middle of the lower.

The eyes. The pale cheeks. The dangerous red hair.

“Would it make a difference?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said, and placed her cold hand on mine. “As you can imagine, it’s been some time.”

We went to the bedroom.

The big south-facing window looked out over the valley and the clear night gave up the winter constellations. Naked, she was beautiful, but gaunt and pale, like a case, like something washed up in the Lagan.

I took her, and I was gentle with her, and I held her and she slept in my arms. I listened to her heart and watched her chest heave up and down.

She was frowning in her dream.

Those closed blue eyes could not see any good in the future.

I fell asleep watching her.

She woke me in the wolf’s tail – that grey Irish light that comes before the dawn.

“Huh, what is it?” I asked.

“I heard a noise!” she said. “Something’s outside.”

I sat up, rubbed my face.

“What?”

“Outside. I hear something. I’ll get the rabbit gun.”

“No, I’ll go.”

I pulled on my jeans and sneakers and my raincoat. I grabbed a torch and my .38.

Cora growled at me as I walked into the yard.

It was drizzling, the ground was slick.

“Hello?” I said, turning on the torch.

I walked towards the road.

I slipped on the mud but saved myself by grabbing the gate post. I saw something flash further down the track. Maybe nothing or maybe the fluorescent strip on a rain jacket or a pair of training shoes.

“Is there anyone down there?” I yelled.

I held out the .38 and shone the torch beam down the road.

Nothing. I flashed the beam up into the hills.

No movement, no sounds.

The distant lough, the even more distant sea.

I stood there, waiting for something. Anything. “There’s nothing here,” I said to myself. I walked a little bit further down the lane and then cut back to the farm along the hypotenuse of the nearest field. I nearly took a header into a bog hole filled with water, but saved myself before the final step. When I got back to the house Cora was barking again and Emma was standing in the doorway with a shotgun.