Trey doesn’t stay within the yard. She’s as restless as her dad, not from fear, but from waiting. She has no way of knowing whether the detective believed her story, whether he’s following it up, whether he’s getting anywhere, or whether he ignored it completely. She has no idea how long it should take for the story to work, if it’s going to. Cal could tell her, but she doesn’t have Cal.
She goes out; not down to the village and not to Cal’s, but to meet up with her mates, in the evening. They climb walls in a ruined cottage and sit there, sharing a packet of robbed cigarettes and a few bottles of cider that Aidan’s brother bought for him. Below them, the sun sits heavily on the horizon, turning the west a sullen red.
Her mates, none of whom are from Ardnakelty, haven’t heard anything useful. They don’t really give a shite about the detective; mainly they want to talk about Rushborough’s ghost, which apparently is already haunting the mountain. Callum Bailey claims a see-through gray man came at him through the trees, snapping its jaws and ripping down branches. He’s only saying it to scare Chelsea Moylan so he can walk her home and maybe shift her, but of course after that Lauren O’Farrell saw the ghost too. Lauren will believe anything and has to be part of everything, so Trey tells her there were men in a car hanging around the mountain the night Rushborough got killed. Straightaway, easy as that, Lauren was looking out her window that night and saw car headlights going up the mountain and stopping halfway. She’ll tell everyone who’ll listen, and sooner or later someone will tell the detective.
Hanging out with the lads has changed. Trey feels older than them, and separate. They’re having a laugh like always, while she’s watching and measuring everything she says; she feels the heft and ripple of every word, where they hold everything lightly. Before the cider is finished, she heads home. She never gets drunk, but she’s tipsy enough that the dark mountainside feels loosely bounded and hard to gauge, as if the spaces outside her line of vision could be closing in on her or expanding faster than she can picture. When she gets in, her dad smells her breath and laughs, and then gives her a slap across the head.
Maeve goes out too. Maeve has mates down the village, or about half the time she does; the rest of the time they’ve had some massive complicated fight and aren’t speaking. “Where you going?” Trey asks, when she catches Maeve doing something stupid with her hair and checking different angles in the bathroom mirror.
“None of your business,” Maeve says. She tries to kick the door closed, but Trey catches it.
“You keep your mouth fuckin’ shut,” Trey says. “About everything.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” Maeve says.
Trey doesn’t have the energy to get into it with Maeve. Sometimes these days she feels like her mam, scraped so empty she could fold in half. “Just keep your mouth shut,” she says.
“You’re just jealous,” Maeve says. “Because you made a balls of helping Daddy, and now he’s sending me to find stuff out instead of you.” She smirks at Trey in the mirror, rearranges a strand of hair, and checks her profile again.
“What stuff?”
“I’m not telling
“Go on outa that bathroom,” Johnny says, appearing behind Trey in T-shirt and boxers, rubbing his face.
“I’m going out now, Daddy,” Maeve says, giving him a big smile.
“Good girl,” Johnny says mechanically. “Aren’t you Daddy’s great helper?” He aims a vague pat at her head as she nudges for a hug, and guides her past him into the hall.
“What’s she finding out for you?” Trey asks.
“Ah, sweetheart,” Johnny says, scratching his ribs and pulling out a half-arsed laugh. He hasn’t shaved, and his fancy haircut lies lank on his forehead. He looks like shite. “You’re still my number-one right-hand woman. But our Maeveen needs something to do as well, doesn’t she? The poor wee girl’s been feeling left out.”
“What’s she finding out?” Trey asks again.
“Ah,” Johnny says, waving a hand. “I like to keep an ear out for what way the wind’s blowing, is all. What the place is saying, what the detective’s asking, who knows about what. Just keeping myself well-informed, like a sensible man—information is power, sure, that’s what—” Trey has already tuned out his babble by the time the bathroom door shuts behind him.
Maeve comes back that evening looking smug. “Daddy,” she says, shoving herself under his arm on the sofa, where he’s staring at the telly. “Daddy, guess what.”
“Now,” Johnny says, snapping out of his daze and smiling down at her. “There’s Daddy’s little secret agent. Tell us everything. How’d you get on?”
Trey is in the armchair. She’s been putting up with her dad’s smoke and his channel-flipping because she wanted to be there when Maeve got back. She leans over for the remote and switches the telly off.
