He’s watching, not Rushborough, but Johnny. Johnny has his head bent sideways over a lighter, flicking it hard. In that unguarded second his face is slack, almost helpless, with some emotion. Cal thinks it might be relief.
“Like I told you,” Mart says. “We’re in for an interesting wee while.”
Cal says, “What’ll you do if it all goes wrong?”
Mart’s forehead crinkles. “What d’you mean, like?”
“If Rushborough starts smelling a rat.”
“ ’Tisn’t my place to do anything, Sunny Jim,” Mart says gently. “This is Johnny Reddy’s wee enterprise. I’m only here for the view. The same as yourself. Remember?”
“Right,” Cal says, after a second.
“Don’t worry,” Mart reassures him. He pulls out his tobacco pouch and starts rolling a cigarette on the bar, with leisurely, expert fingers. “If you forget, I’ll remind you.”
Barty swears bitterly at a rip in one of his new bar stools. In the alcove, someone whistles, high and shrill, cutting through the laughter and the voices like an alarm.
Over breakfast, Cal does some hangover-related calculations. He wants a talk with Johnny Reddy, as early as possible, to prevent Johnny from claiming he’s too late; but that requires Johnny to be awake, and he was still going strong when Cal left the pub at midnight. He doesn’t want Rushborough there, and while Cal figures Johnny won’t want to leave Rushborough unsupervised, Rushborough looked a lot drunker than Johnny did, so he’s likely to take longer to surface. Cal also doesn’t want to encounter Trey, but she has football training on Tuesday mornings and mostly hangs out with her friends afterwards, so she should be out of his way at least until she gets hungry.
In the end he reckons ten-thirty should find Trey gone, Johnny conscious, and Rushborough not yet functional. At a quarter to ten he gets three hundred euros out of his emergency-cash envelope, puts it in his pocket, and starts off towards the mountain. He leaves Rip at home. As far as Cal is concerned, Rip made his opinion of Johnny plain on their first meeting, and shouldn’t be subjected to a second one.
The mountain is sly. From far off, its low, rounded curves look almost harmless, and even as you go up the trail, every step seems gentle enough, until all of a sudden you realize your leg muscles are juddering. The same goes for straying: the path is clear, until you look down after a minute’s distraction and find yourself with one foot slowly pressing deeper into watery bog. It’s a place whose dangers only come into focus when you’re already engaged with them.
Cal, knowing that, takes it slow and steady. The heat is already starting to build. On the purple bogland, the bees fill up the heather with a ceaseless, intent hum and a rustle so tiny that only their sheer numbers make it audible. The view shifts with the twists of the path, over crumbling stone walls and stretches of tall moor grass, to the spread of trim, busy fields far below.
In the Reddys’ front yard, Liam and Alanna have found a broken-handled spade and are building earthworks in the shade of a bedraggled tree. They come running over to explain their construction to Cal and investigate him for candy bars; finding he’s brought none today, they zoom back to their project. The sun is drawing a rich, restless scent from the spruce grove behind the house.
Sheila Reddy answers the door. Cal makes a point of finding chances to speak with Sheila often enough that she doesn’t feel her daughter is off with a stranger. Mostly she smiles and seems pleased to see him, and tells him how well the mended roof has held up to the weather. Today, her face has the same shuttered wariness it wore years ago, when he first came here. She holds the door like a weapon.
“Morning,” he says. “Looks like another hot one coming.”
Sheila barely glances at the sky. “Theresa’s at football,” she says.
“Oh, I know that,” Cal says. “I was hoping to speak to Mr. Reddy, if he’s free.”
Sheila looks at him for a minute, expressionless. “I’ll get him,” she says, and shuts the door behind her.
Liam starts kicking at a corner of the earthworks, and Alanna yells at him. Liam kicks harder. Alanna yells louder and shoves him. Cal resists the urge to tell them both to knock it off.
Johnny takes his time coming to the door. Today the first thing about him that irks Cal is his shirt, which is a blue pinstripe, freshly ironed, with the cuffs neatly rolled. It’s set to be another sizzling day, the kind where even the shriveled old ladies who arrange flowers in front of the Virgin Mary grotto dig out short sleeves, but this little schmuck feels the need to express that he’s too fancy for everything about Ardnakelty, right down to the weather.
“Mr. Hooper,” he says pleasantly. This time he doesn’t try to shake hands. “Did you enjoy last night? You were an addition to the party: you’ve a fine voice on you.”
