Tears of God

by Christy Kenneally

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

Fr Michael Flaherty returned to the Island to hide from the world, knowing that those he loves are in danger just because he is alive. But try as he might, he can''t escape his past - and, soon, a phone call in the night makes him realise that he has to face his enemy one final time to rid himself of the evil that threatens everything - and everyone - he holds dear. He finds himself in the middle of Jerusalem and in the middle of a fight for the greatest resource the city has - water. As the leaders of the Christians, the Muslims and the Jews argue over which of them owns the vast underground lake beneath the city, those at ground level are involved in a much more simple argument - who should live and who should die? As Michael struggles with his own salvation will he know who to trust and who to destroy?

Release date: July 30, 2012

Publisher: Hachette Ireland

Print pages: 480

Sample

Jerusalem

The Crusader Knight stood silhouetted against an inferno of candles so that the man who knelt before him had to squint against the glare. Behind his back, his hands tugged vainly at the cords that bound him and he grimaced as the blood dripped from his fingers. He had seen the witnesses arrive before the servants of the Knight had trussed him and flung him down.

This is a nightmare, he told himself frantically. I’ll wake and—

The Knight’s thunderous voice chased the words from his brain.

‘We left our kingdom at the behest of Urban, the Bishop of Rome, and for the glory of God. We travelled over land and sea to the gates of Constantinople and there fought bloody battles for the ingrate Patriarch. When one of our number took his hand from the plough and sought to enrich himself at the expense of our sacred Crusade, I, Baldwin, pursued Tancred, the apostate, into Cilicia and plucked his conquests from his grasp by force of arms. We who were faithful had no thought for ourselves but only for our sacred mission. And so we came here and set our ladders against the city walls and slew every living creature that had dared to tread, breed and barter where Christ our Saviour had died and risen from the dead.’

The silhouette loomed larger as the Knight stepped closer.

‘Oh, God,’ the man whimpered. ‘Oh, God.’

‘And when my brother, Godfrey, leached of his ardour by those who stank of incense and putrid piety, refused the crown, by the will of Christ he sickened and died. Then did God call me to fulfil his command and my destiny. With the edge of this sword, I scraped the city clean of pagan vermin. By the strength of my arm I raised up the blessed buildings the pagan had thrown down.’

He stepped closer still, filling the captive’s vision.

‘My brother,’ he rasped, ‘my brother, may his woman’s soul wail for ever in Hell. He played me for a fool. He sent messages to the Bishop of Rome informing him of a great treasure he had found, a treasure that ensured that the kingdom of Jerusalem would withstand its enemies for ever. That secret he took to his grave. I will have it,’ he roared, and the great sword flashed upwards.

With shame, the captive felt his bowels loosen.

‘I ask again,’ the Knight shouted. ‘Where will I find the Tears of God?’

The man before him made a great effort to gather his wits. ‘Please, please, believe me,’ he begged. ‘I do not know.’

With a bellow of rage, the Knight swept the sword in a mighty arc. The man’s head rolled across the paving stones, blood puddling at the Knight’s feet. Exhausted, he lowered the tip of the blade to the floor and bowed over the cross-guard. His glacial blue eyes swept the assembly of stricken faces in the gloom.

‘Do not fail me,’ he whispered. ‘Find the Tears of God.’

On trembling legs, the witnesses scurried from his presence. When the last had stumbled through the great door and the sound of their footsteps had faded, a servant approached. The Knight gestured contemptuously at the remains on the floor.

‘Take this … thing,’ he said, ‘and throw it to the infidel.’

The Island, Ireland

Michael Flaherty gripped the handrail of the ferryboat until his fingernails dug half-moons in the polished timber. Moments before, when he had finally ventured from the tiny cabin, the sea had dazzled him. Now, eyes screwed shut, he steadied himself against the roll of the ship, the beat of the engines pulsing through him. Eventually the sound and smell of the water as it parted before the prow lulled him, and he began to relax.

He didn’t know how long he’d been standing there, lost in the slow rise and fall, the wind ruffling his hair and cooling his skin, the gulls shrieking above.

When he opened his eyes again, the sea had turned to blood. The ache he had trained to hover just outside his consciousness returned to the bullet hole in his chest and began to pulse in time with the waves that slapped against the hull. Sweat bloomed from his pores, dragging a cold saltwater finger from throat to navel.

‘Breathe, Michael,’ Dr Eli Weissman’s voice whispered in his head.

He conjured up a picture of the lanky, skull-capped Eli sitting on his bed as he had done every evening of Michael’s convalescence in Rome’s Santa Sabina Hospital.

‘Breathe, Michael, it’s allowed, special dispensation from the Pope.’

‘For all priests, or just the shot ones?’

‘Especially the Irish shot ones, the ones who need permission to feel their pain and think a bullet goes no deeper than the body. Breathe.’

Michael took a tentative breath and the ache lessened. He risked opening his eyes, and the air locked in his chest. The Island was etched against the red wound of the evening sky. Reluctantly, he fastened his eyes on the Devil’s Finger. Even in the lurid half-light he could see the sea-stack standing apart from the Island, the moil of white water chewing at its base. And now another voice began to speak, a cold angry voice he recognised as coming from that detached, armoured part of himself. ‘Do you see it, Flaherty?’ it asked.

‘I see it,’ he replied.

‘You remember Lar, don’t you?’

‘I remember.’

‘Sure you do. The boy who sat behind you in the classroom, a hulking, big-boned lad who dreamed of boats and water. He could never sit still, could he? Always tacking in his desk from one cheek of his arse to the other, twisting his head, time after time, to the slash of sea at the bottom of the window.’

‘I remember.’

‘Do you remember, when you were here last, how he sailed in there in that big launch – in there, by the Devil’s Finger, where other men, who thought they were his betters, wouldn’t pole a currach? And why? To get back a little of what you stole from him with little twitches of annoyance when his fidgeting in school dragged you from your books, when you pared him down to invisibility, looking through him on the road, when you fathered a child with the only girl who might have filled the hole in his heart. He’s down there now, eyeless and empty, because of you.’

He tried to close his eyes but the voice was relentless.

‘See the cliffs beyond? Go on, look at them. Gabriel, your younger brother, flew from there because you were missing. You were busy running, Flaherty, first to the army, then to the Church, the action-man who missed the real action.’

A young man’s panicked voice rose to override the other.

‘Catch me, Michael,’ it screamed, ‘I’m falling.’

‘I’m here, Gabriel,’ Michael whispered. ‘I’ll catch you.’

‘Too late for that,’ the voice continued. ‘Too late for Gabriel. Never found. Never put in the ground with your mother. Look a little farther along the cliff. Yes, there. Remember Father Mack, your mentor, your friend? Remember him hanging from your hand over the edge with the blood bubbling in his mouth? You let him go – just opened your hand and dropped him.’

‘He begged me,’ Michael murmured, his right hand reaching out over the handrail. ‘He said, “If you ever loved me, Michael, let me go.”’

‘Love! Did you ever know what it was outside of books or the ‘duty’ love for your dead mother?’

‘I loved her. I loved him.’

‘It wasn’t enough to save them. Look out on the water where your brother Liam slipped away from the upturned boat.’

Again, a plaintive voice rose. ‘I’m cold, Michael, so cold.’

‘You saw in your father’s eyes that he was glad it wasn’t you, the scholar, only poor drunken Liam. Can you deny it?’

‘I can’t deny it. I saw it.’

‘Death and the stoic, Flaherty. There’s a thesis in it somewhere. And what of murder?’

‘Murder?’

‘Yes, the American in the water. You surely remember him?’

‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘But you would have, could have.’

‘He would have killed Tess in the boat.’

‘But he didn’t. He had only half a face and one good arm when you put him in the water for others to kill. You watched the rise and fall of oars until the mess that remained floated off like a cursed currach. Murder, Flaherty. You shot a priest in Rome. He was deranged and you shot him. You asked for the gun and got it. Intent and execution. So now you’re back. For what? Hasn’t enough blood been shed? Do you think the woman might love you, the child might warm to you, cuckoo that you are, raiding a dead man’s nest? You know who you are, what you are. You are the hero, the bearer of heartbreak, the sower of nightmare. You’re no priest. You’re not even a man.’

Michael Flaherty pressed his hands to his ears, bearing down on the voice inside his head. He was in a vast whirlpool, circling down, down, the screaming of the gulls muted by the thunder of the water. Stippled kelp wound round him – the clutch of drowned men’s fingers.

‘Michael, breathe.’

Eli’s soft voice penetrated the nightmare, dragging him back to rationality. Automatically, he inflated his chest, welcoming the pain. Behind the locked shutters of his eyes, he saw Eli at the foot of the bed. Mercifully, the neon tubes in the ceiling had been turned off for the night, and only the faint wash of streetlight penetrated the room.

‘We need to talk about your dreams, Michael.’

‘Dream, Eli.’

‘How very singular,’ the doctor said mildly. ‘It’s the same dream, then,’ he continued. ‘You exhibit all the symptoms of a drowning man.’

‘So, you qualified as a psychologist when, Dr Weissman?’

‘No, but I—’

‘You what? You have no right, Eli, you’re a doctor.’

‘I have the right as your friend.’

Michael exhaled, his face to the ceiling.

‘People close to me tend to die, sooner or later,’ he whispered.

‘Everyone dies, Michael,’ the doctor continued, relentlessly calm, ‘everyone, neither sooner nor later. They just die when they do. I know.’ He sat upright and angled his body so that his face was in profile. ‘I’ll tell you a story.’

‘Now it’s bedtime stories. Great therapy, Dr Freud.’

‘You have other time apart from bedtime? Anyway, Jung was the dream-meister, not Freud.’

He paused.

‘When I was young – younger – I had a dream. It was a waking dream. I was just qualified in medicine and wanted to be a hero like Schweitzer or Dr Tom Dooley. I volunteered to go to Israel and work as a doctor in a kibbutz in the Negev desert. Perhaps my dream also included sabras in khaki shirts – tight khaki shirts, capisce?’

Michael waved him on.

‘I didn’t know that everyone worked the fields, even the summa cum laude doctor, newly graduated from Johns Hopkins University. So the doctor sweats in the fields or steams in the plastic hydroponic tunnels. In the evenings, he treats his own cuts and blisters, then attends to his patients. Sometimes, there were rockets falling in the kibbutz, presents from Syria, delivered by the Palestinians, but, mostly, it was work. I met a girl, a teacher. It was in a bomb shelter, during a mortar attack, and she got everyone to sing – even me. Later, we became friends. We liked to walk in the desert in the dark. She – Sharon – knew all the stars. Then, one night, they crossed the wire and took us.’

He paused for so long that Michael thought he would not continue.

‘They put me in an empty water-tank under the ground. It was ten paces long and five wide. I didn’t know where she was but I … I could hear her. Sometimes, I kicked the walls and shouted but I could still hear her.’

A car grumbled by outside and the swinging beam gleamed bleakly on Eli’s face.

‘I would have done anything, given them anything, but I had nothing they wanted. Then it was over. They took me back to the wire. I walked across and two men went the other way. I was free. At the debriefing I told them everything. Yes, I would have signed confessions, made broadcasts, given them information about the kibbutz, anything. No one was angry, only sympathetic. “You must get on with your life,” they said. I came back to Rome to be the dutiful son and nephew, the caring doctor. I like to walk in the air, mostly at night. One night I was coming across the Tiber on the Milvian Bridge and climbed up onto the parapet to gaze at the stars. I looked down at their reflection in the water for a very long time. The same stars were above and below, Michael, and I made a choice.’

Eli planed his cheeks with his palms.

‘I asked for information from my colleagues on behalf of a patient. Doctors have a constitutional fear of psychology. For four years now, I’ve knocked on a door every Monday at one o’clock sharp. It’s four flights to a small room at the top of the building. There are two chairs and a big window that shows only sky. Outside is Rome, all the normal things; inside just me and the therapist. She lets me sit, or lie, or pace. Always ten paces this way, five paces that. Every Monday for one hour only, I’ve been digging my way out. I tell you this not as a boast but as your friend and for your hope.’

He stood and walked to the window.

‘We’re men, Michael. What happens to a man-child? My ancestors, in Rome, would put one on the floor at birth. If the father picked him up, they would keep him. They didn’t name a man-child until he was five years old. If he hadn’t died by then, there was a good chance that he would live. From the time he could walk, he carried a weapon and all the dreams of glorious Rome. I think perhaps all cultures weigh their children with dreams. Too many dreams, too many ideals, too many heroes and so much glorious death. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’

‘It is “sweet and right” to die for one’s country,’ Michael translated quietly.

‘And not just for one’s country,’ the doctor continued, ‘the list is endless. We’re taught to live for others. Those who live for others don’t live. They just take longer to die. It’s a slow suicide. I wouldn’t want that for me or you.’

He faced the priest in the bed.

‘I’ve mended your body, Michael Flaherty. Only you can save your soul.’

When he was gone, Michael Flaherty turned to the wall. When he spoke, his voice was clotted with tears.

‘I needed the pain, Eli. I needed it, and you took it from me. Pain and anger were all I had. I was good at them. What have I now?’

‘Michael?’

‘No more,’ he shouted, ‘no more.’

‘Michael, it’s Tess.’

‘Tess?’

‘You were talkin’ a bit loud like.’

He was standing at the rail of the ferryboat. The sea was calm and luminous with the last light that comes before true dark. Tess Duggan, the skipper, was holding his arm, her wind-lined face fissured with anxiety. He began to breathe again, in, out, in, out.

‘Sorry, Tess. I…’

‘Arrah, sorry me arse. There’s too much sayin’ sorry and not enough shoutin’ if you ask me.’

‘But the other passengers?’

‘Only four of them,’ she said. ‘English,’ she added disparagingly. ‘Over to stay the night on the Island to soak up the Celtic twilight. They’re huddled on the other side of the wheelhouse. I think the mad monk bit was more than they bargained for. Come away into the cabin – I’m taking a tea break.’

She didn’t wait for an answer and Michael followed her obediently into the beer-and-leather smell of the small cabin. ‘Here,’ she said, shoving a huge white mug at him. ‘Wrap yourself around that.’

Tess Duggan’s rough affection moved him and he held the mug two-handed, letting the steam’s damp warmth wreathe around his eyes. Tess swivelled in her seat until she could survey the deck through the window and keep a weather eye on her brother in the wheelhouse.

‘You look like shit on a slate,’ she said.

He bowed his head, sipped his tea and coughed. It came all the way up from his toes and a tiny wave slopped over the rim of the mug. Tess’ face tightened.

‘I see you’re still taking tea with your whiskey, Tess,’ he managed.

‘And you’re still the same smart-arse you always were,’ she countered. She looked at him for a long time. ‘I heard you had a bit of trouble beyond.’

God, he thought, we Irish are the masters and mistresses of understatement. Who but ourselves could sum up years of murder and mayhem as ‘The Troubles’? He knew with certainty that Tess would say, ‘Soft day,’ when rain was blinding the window of the wheelhouse and ‘Weather,’ when mountains of water raged all the way from Newfoundland. It was their way – our way, he reminded himself. He also knew it was an invitation, and declined it. Instead, he shifted into the ritual word-dance.

‘Aye, a bit.’

‘Well, there’ll be some glad to see you home,’ she said, and got to her feet.

He felt the judder of pipes as she turned the tap and placed her mug on the metal draining board.

‘And some that won’t,’ he replied.

‘Aye, them too. Give me here that mug and I’ll top it for you.’ As he reached out, he took her hand and held it firmly. ‘There’s something I want you to do for me,’ he said quietly.

‘Anything at all, Michael,’ she said. ‘God knows, I owe you. That American Skald would have killed me if you hadn’t …’

‘There’s no owing between friends,’ he said. ‘I want you to watch the water for me, Tess.’

‘The water?’

‘Yes. If … when they come, they’ll have to come by the water.’

‘How will I know them, Michael? I mean … what will they look like?’

‘Like anybody and nobody,’ he replied cryptically, as if talking to himself.

‘I’ll do that, Michael.’

Instantly he was back to his usual bantering self, a version of himself he wore like some kind of armour.

‘Any chance you’d be sailing on to Boston?’ he added, taking refuge in the banter they had shared the last time he was home. When was that? he mused. A lifetime ago.

‘Not today. I’ve crates of milk for Finnegan’s bar and ’twould spoil.’

‘Another day then.’

‘Aye.’

The door groaned and slapped behind her, and he watched her move to the wheelhouse.



Iarla Duggan kept his eyes on the sea when his sister came in and checked the chart.

‘Jaysus, sis,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that yer man?’

‘He’s Michael Flaherty,’ she said brusquely, ‘and you can save the Jaysus for praying.’

It had been on the tip of her tongue to answer, ‘It’s what’s left of him.’ She had been shocked by the ranting figure at the rail, the claws of his hands curled to the same white as his face. But she had been frightened by the favour he had asked of her. She remembered the bookish boy who was kind to small ones, who shadowed the Island priest and who rarely looked at the water. She wondered if his stay at home this time would be better than the last. Couldn’t be much worse, she thought, and shook herself. Iarla was gazing at her, clearly hoping for some revelation about the priest.

‘Iarla,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m going to tell you something.’

‘What, sis?’ he asked eagerly, leaning away from the wheel.

‘It’s about the pier,’ she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

‘What about it?’

‘If you don’t shove this bloody boat into reverse, we’ll be wearing it.’

‘Jaysus.’

She burst out of the wheelhouse and swung the fenders just in time to buffer the boat against the dock. Iarla was watching her from the window, his face a picture of apprehension. There were times when she could happily have dumped him over the rail with the slops but he had reversed and swung her boat hip-on to the pier with instinctive skill. Her brother had salt water in his veins. He’d do. She tilted her head at him in a rare show of approval. He was smiling like a gaffed fish when she turned to coil the hawser.

Jerusalem

‘Shit,’ muttered Detective Ari Avram. ‘Shit, shit and double shit.’

‘Eh, Detective?’ the dispatcher’s voice enquired nervously on the radio.

‘What?’ he snapped.

‘You want backup?’

‘Backup? Yeah, I’ll have two F14s, medium rare, with a rocket salad on the side and a troop-carrier dip.’

‘What?’

‘Forget it.’

‘Where to?’ his partner asked, gunning an engine that had never been manufactured for the car they were sitting in.

‘The Aqsa mosque,’ he grunted.

‘Oh, yeah,’ she said sarcastically, ‘to the Aqsa mosque and then to the Dome of the Rock and, heck, let’s go on to Mecca.’

‘You’re seriously pissing me off,’ he snarled, hauling out the seatbelt and trying to jam it into the lock.

‘Doesn’t work,’ she said blithely, ‘never has,’ and stabbed the accelerator.

‘You know what the trouble is with F14 jet fighters?’ he asked conversationally, as they went head to head with a truck.

‘No,’ she said, and twitched the steering wheel at the last possible moment to fishtail round the truck and spray an ultra-Orthodox Jewish male with dust. She twitched it again and they were barrelling between two buses. ‘What is the problem with F14s?’

‘F14s …’ he began calmly, watching the bus on the left loom ever larger in his peripheral vision, ‘… F14s …’ Swear to God, he thought, we’re now firmly attached to the side of bus number two.

‘You were saying?’

‘I was saying, they take off at such a lick that they’re out of Israeli air space before they can turn. Turn, for Chrissake, turn!’

She turned, taking a bright red swathe of paint from the side of the vehicle. ‘Language,’ she said reprovingly, easing back on the pedal so that they were merely hurtling.

‘Who the hell taught you to drive?’

‘What? You get taught?’

‘Pull over.’

They stepped onto the pavement, moved instinctively to the shadow of a shop awning and stood facing each other. As they talked, they performed a slow side-shuffle, turning full circle as they scanned over each other’s shoulder.

‘What’s the scene?’

‘Aqsa mosque. Call to dispatch. Lots of hysteria, imprecations, insults and threats.’

‘Upset, then?’

‘Somewhat. Time to move. Me first, you follow.’

He walked away and she scoped the human and vehicular traffic for pedestrian or drive-by threat. Nothing. He stopped, she walked. Same drill.

‘Coffee?’

‘Cappuccino.’

Inside, always inside, with their backs to the wall, facing the door.

‘So?’

‘Me in, you watch?’

‘What?’

‘Confucius him say woman detective wearing pants in mosque as welcome as fart in space suit.’

‘Big guy, hat, end of bar? Carrying.’

‘Ours.’

‘Oh.’

‘Go.’

Detective Avram toed his way out of his shoes and padded into the Aqsa mosque, picking up a skull-cap in the porch. He walked full-circle around the man crouched alone on a mulberry carpet, the amateur historian in him distracted by the Carrara marble columns donated by Mussolini and the painted ceiling courtesy of King Farouk. He also recalled reading of a deranged young man who had started a fire here in 1969 which had wrecked the Dome and reduced the pulpit to ashes. That focused him and he hunkered down beside the man on the carpet, flipping open his identity card. ‘I am the imam,’ the man whispered through ashen lips. A tendril of spittle dangled from his mouth and he wiped it away with a trembling hand, which he raised and pointed. Avram walked to the pillar and stepped round it. The head was resting on the floor. No blood-puddle, he registered, dead before delivery. He retraced his steps.

‘Tell me what to do.’

‘You are a Jew?’

‘Retired.’

‘Please, just take it away from here. If any members of my community should see this …’

‘Two things,’ the detective interrupted. ‘The first is I’ll get it away from here. The second is that you give your word to keep this secret.’

‘Our mosque has been desecrated and you—’

‘Listen, Imam. Last month it was the synagogue in Mea Shearim. That’s secret too. Just so you know it’s not about you.’

‘Who … who could do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know. Yet.’

The imam glanced at the shoeless feet and skull-cap.

‘You are Detective Avram.’

‘Yes.’

‘We have heard of you, a man of no faith who is fair to all faiths.’

‘Can you come to Police Headquarters tomorrow morning to make a statement?’

‘Yes.’

Avram peeled off his jacket as he walked to the pillar, bundled the head in the jacket and took it outside. A man pushing a broom across the far pavement paused to lean on the handle. The two detectives put their heads together so that their profiles bordered the frame. Click. The high-powered camera purred once and returned to the sweeper’s pocket.

‘Bomb?’

‘Head.’

‘Another? Shit.’

‘Language!’

The Island, Ireland

Fiona Flaherty watched the ferry pivot, almost on its axis, to nudge and snuggle at the pier. She nodded at Tess Duggan, who returned the gesture. No flies on Tess, she thought approvingly. Berth the boat first, meet and greet after.

She saw Tess wave to Iarla in the wheelhouse and smiled. God almighty, she reflected, teaching Iarla had been her greatest challenge in the schoolroom.

‘Iarla, where’s your homework?’

‘I must have left it on the boat, Miss.’

‘That’ll have them laughing on the mainland.’

‘True enough, Miss.’

Iarla had been terminally sunny, content in the knowledge that he had merely to survive school to join Tess on the boat. On dry land, he had an extra ankle and elbow, the classic unco-ordinated teenager. Her eyes tracked him now as he swung lightly from the wheelhouse door to join his sister, expertly looping a rope between thumb and elbow. Two flustered couples bumped their baggage down the gangplank and tottered along the pier.

‘Shouldn’t be allowed,’ one of the ladies remarked crossly, to no one in particular.

At last the cabin door opened and Michael Flaherty took a tentative step from the dark.

The light crept up from his feet to his face, and Fiona’s eyes registered and parsed the details. His shoes looked comfortable rather than clean, and his trousers were creased at the front as if cinched too tightly at the waist. The grey windcheater was puffed out and she wondered if he had gained weight, but then the wind eased and it collapsed to hang straight down from his shoulders. If he turned full circle it wouldn’t move, she thought, and a sob bubbled up in her throat. Her brother had always had high cheekbones, buttressing dark, almost Hispanic eyes, but she was struck now by how the dark half-moons beneath them stained the pallor of his face. She swallowed the sob and struggled for control.

‘Fi.’

Even the use of her pet name, she sensed, owed nothing to emotion. The Michael she had known possessed a deceptive physical stillness; deceptive because it masked a tightly wound energy. She had seen him move like a lithe animal across the littered floor of their brother Gabriel’s vandalised bedroom; a lithe and lethal animal. She had heard how her brother had hunted the killer Skald and put him in the water for others to finish. Now his eyes reflected the loss of vigour so evident in his body; their vacancy frightened her.

‘What does a brother have to do to get a hug around here?’ he said, and smiled.

That’s how people smile when they’ve been bereaved, she thought. People who are searching inside themselves for someone lost and are distracted by condolence. Michael, her champion throughout her motherless girlhood in a house of boys, felt insubstantial in her embrace.

‘Wait here,’ she said brusquely. ‘I’ll be back.’ It took all her self-control not to add, ‘And don’t stir,’ as if she was shepherding a little one.

‘You and Schwarzenegger.’ He lowered himself onto a bollard.



‘Tommy, where’s the car?’

‘Tommy the Yank’, as he was known locally, shifted a toothpick expertly to the non-speaking corner of his mouth as his round face went through the agonisingly slow process of assimilating the question.

‘Why, back out yonder, t’other side of the pier, ma’am.’

Thirty-five years in the Bronx and he comes back sounding like John Wayne, she marvelled. ‘Too far,’ she said briskly, ‘bring it right up to the boat.’

Again, the toothpick did its slow, spiralling dance across his expensive American teeth.

‘Can’t rightly do that, ma’am,’ he drawled. ‘They got ordinances about vehicular traffic on this here—’

‘Shift yer arse,’ she snapped, and was pleased to see the toothpick fall from his slack mouth.

‘I’m on it.’

Fiona turned abruptly and came face to face with Tess.

‘You saw him, Tess?

‘I saw him.’

‘Jesus, he looks like—’

‘Fiona.’ Tess’ voice brought her up as short as if the other woman had shaken her shoulders. ‘Fiona,’ she continued, more gently, ‘get a hold of yourself, girl. Your brother’s been hurt and—’

‘I know that.’

‘No, listen to me now. He’s been hurt … inside. Do you follow?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘But nothing. Men come back from the sea without their fathers or brothers. I’ve seen it, you’ve seen it.’

Fiona nodded.

‘Women go mad,’ Tess continued. ‘They cry and tear their hair. Then they calm down and make arrangements. Men don’t do that because, well, they’re men. Then, all that stuff …’ She shook her head suddenly as if ridding her hair of water. ‘It can go bad and eat at them. Do you follow?’

‘I don’t know what to do, Tess.’

Tess rested a rough hand on her shoulder.

‘Don’t be doing anything, Fiona,’ she said quietly. ‘Just take him home and give him time … And now brace yourself, girl,’ she said smiling. ‘Tommy