Mart stares at him for a second and then bursts into high-pitched giggles. “Holy God,” he says, “you’ll be the death of me. Are you talking about that wee kerfuffle in the pub? If Donie McGrath went around killing sheep on every man who put him back in his box, he’d never get a night’s sleep. He hasn’t got the work ethic for it.”

“P.J. put him back in his box lately?” Cal inquires. “Or Bobby Feeney?”

“If it’s not one thing with you, Sunny Jim, it’s another,” Mart says, shaking his head. “Never mind that telescope; what you need is a game of Cluedo. I’ll buy you one myself, and you can bring it down to Seán Óg’s for us all to play.” He gets rid of the last of his giggles and snaps his fingers for Kojak to come back to the brush. “Will you be in tonight, for a straightener?”

“Nah,” Cal says. “I gotta recover.” He doesn’t feel any desire to go to Seán Óg’s, tonight or in general. He always liked the glint and speed of the men there, of their talk and their shifting expressions, but now, when he thinks back, all that looks different: light flashing on a river, with who knows what underneath.

“A fine strong fella like you,” Mart says, more in sorrow than in scorn. “What’s the younger generation coming to, at all?” Cal laughs and heads back to his car, with the pebbles of Mart’s driveway crunching under his feet.

When he gets home, he takes out his notebook and settles himself in the armchair to read through everything he’s got. He needs to order his thoughts. He’s never much liked this phase of an investigation, when things are messy and layered, forking off in multiple directions, and too many of them didn’t actually happen. He hangs in there for the part when, if he’s lucky, he gets to strip away the misty theories and take hold of the solid things hidden among them.

This time the process has a personal quality that he’s not accustomed to. The fear in Sheila’s eyes, and Caroline’s, told him that last night’s warning wasn’t a general caution against being a busybody. It was about Brendan.

Cal would love to know what or who, exactly, he’s supposed to be scared of. Brendan appears to have been frightened of the Guards, and Sheila might well be wary of them either on his behalf or by reflex. But Cal has a hard time finding a reason why Caroline, or Mart, or he himself should be terrified of Garda Dennis, unless the whole townland is up to its neck in some vast criminal enterprise that could be blown sky-high if he goes asking too many questions, which seems unlikely.

The obvious alternative, in that they seem to be the only threat anyone can point to, is the drug boys from Dublin. Cal assumes that, like drug gangs everywhere else, they wouldn’t think twice about getting rid of anyone who caused them inconvenience. If Brendan became inconvenient one way or another, and they disappeared him, they wouldn’t be best pleased about some nosy Yank poking around. The question is how they would know.

Cal feels it’s getting close to time for him to talk to Donie McGrath. Now, at any rate, he has an unimpeachable reason for doing that. Mart knows Cal was feeling protective after the pub argument. It would be only natural for him to go rattle Donie’s cage a little bit about that sheep. That wouldn’t violate last night’s warning; not unless Mart thinks the sheep have something to do with Brendan. Cal is interested to see what happens after he talks to Donie.

He sits with his notebook for a while, looking at the map and considering where Ardnakelty, rightly or wrongly, thinks Brendan has gone, and why.

Outside the window, the clouds are still holding their rain, but the green of the fields is dimming as the light starts to fade. Evening has its own smell here, dense and cool, with a heady tinge of plants and flowers that play no part in the daytime. Cal gets up to turn on the light and put his shopping away.

He was planning to send the woolly sheep to Alyssa, but now he’s not sure whether that would be a dumb idea. She might think he’s treating her like a little kid, and take offense. In the end he unwraps the sheep from its green tissue paper and stands it on his living-room mantelpiece, where it leans wearily to one side and gives him a sad reproachful stare.

THIRTEEN

First thing next morning, Cal texts Lena. Hi, Cal Hooper here. Wondering if I might be able to come see how that pup’s doing sometime today. No problem if that’s not convenient. Thanks.

The clouds opened up during the night. Even in his sleep, Cal heard the heavy unceasing drum of rain on his roof; it drilled its way through his dreams, which seemed important at the time, although he can’t now remember them. He eats breakfast watching it streak past the window, dense enough to blur the fields beyond.

He’s doing the dishes when Lena texts him back. I’m in all morning till half twelve. Pup is twice the size.

Given the weather, Cal takes the car. The windshield mottles with big splatters too fast for the wipers to keep up, and his tires send fans of muddy water spraying from potholes. The smell of the fields comes through the cracked car window, fresh with wet grass and fertile with cow dung. The mountains are invisible; beyond the fields there’s only gray, cloud blending into mist. The herd animals stand still, huddled together, with their heads down.

“You found the place again,” Lena says, when she opens the door. “Fair play to you.”

“I’m getting the hang of the area,” Cal says. He stoops to pat Nellie, who, delighted to see him, is wagging her whole hind end. “Little by little.”

He expects Lena to put on a jacket and come out, but instead she holds the door open for him. He scrapes his boots on the mat and follows her down the hall.

Lena’s kitchen is big and warm, made up of things that have seen plenty of use but are solid enough that they’ve held up: gray stone floor tiles worn smooth in spots, wooden cabinets painted a chipped butter-yellow, a long farmhouse table that could be decades old or centuries. The lights are on against the dark day. The room is clean but not neat: there’s a tumble of books and newspapers spread across the table, and piles of ironing waiting to be put away on two of the chairs. The place makes it clear that whoever lives there has only themselves to please.

Mewling and rustling noises come from a big cardboard box tucked in a corner. “There they are,” Lena says.

“They moved indoors in the end, huh?” Cal says. The mama dog lifts her head and lets out a low rumble, deep in her chest. He turns away and fusses over Nellie, who’s brought him a chewed sneaker.

“That bit of frost the other night did it,” Lena says. She kneels down and cups the mama dog’s jaw to calm her. “Midnight, she came scratching at the door with a pup in her mouth, wanting to bring them all into the warm. They’ll have to go out again once they start running about—I’m not cleaning the floor after them. But they’ll do grand here for another few days.”