‘You said you’re taking this seriously,’ Izzy said, ‘but what are you actually going to do?’

He hesitated. ‘Well, we’ll look into . . . there are procedures in place when witnesses come forward with information, to deal with accusations of this kind.’

‘What procedures? Will he be questioned again? Will the house be searched? Will Dolores be questioned again? You have to talk to her. She knows. The wife always knows. There is no way he was going up to that cottage every night and Dolores had no idea what was going on.’

‘If we investigate further and it proves necessary to question Mrs Mullen again then we will certainly do that.’

‘No. You’re not listening to me,’ she said. ‘You have to speak to her.’

‘Izzy,’ Pat Farrelly said, ‘you can leave it with us now. We’ll do everything that needs to be done.’

Izzy nodded and cast her eyes down at the hearth where the figurine lay shattered in the dustpan.

‘Will I see you at bridge on Tuesday, I will?’ Pat Farrelly asked.

‘Oh, probably,’ she said, unable to bring herself to look at him.

And then there was some babble of farewells in the hallway, and the front door closed and she listened to the noise of the engine as it disappeared down the drive.

James returned to his place beside her. She folded her arms and sank into the sofa. He slid his arm around her back and she felt herself soften.

‘You did all right,’ he said, and held her tighter to him.

‘I did my best, I suppose – it’s up to them now.’

‘What happened there?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘In the dustpan?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘my lovely girl, the tall, slim one reaching for the sky. I destroyed her. Shattered her. I was arsing around with the hoover and I jumped at the noise of the doorbell and smashed her into bits.’

‘Oh well, not to worry.’

‘Oh well indeed.’

‘You’d have some job gluing that back together.’

This made her laugh and then very quickly that laughter dissolved into tears. She placed her head against James’s chest and wept.

Chapter 28

Dolores placed her weekend case on the bed and lined it with a baby blanket covered in little green turtles. She didn’t want the first thing her child felt to be one of those scratchy blankets the nurses gave you. And for herself she placed a nice soft towel and a decent bar of soap so she could keep away from the caustic stuff they used at the hospital. Nappies, baby grows, twenty pairs of knickers went in on top of that. Her fourth child, she could have left this to the last minute and still done it with her eyes closed, but this child was impatient.

She placed her hand on her stomach. ‘You may wait a while yet,’ she said. ‘I’m not quite ready for you. I’m trying to make everything nice.’

Dolores pulled out the top drawer of her dresser and at the back she found a translucent plastic statue of the Blessed Virgin filled with Holy Water, “Knock Shrine” written at her feet. She threw this into the bag and pulled the zip.

The phone rang. She carried the weekend case down the hall and placed it under the stairs, ready for when the time came to go to the hospital.

She answered, ‘Hello. Dolores speaking.’

‘Dolores, how are you? Are you keeping well, you are?’

She knew it was Sergeant Farrelly from his voice. He was from down the country somewhere and spoke in a soft, lilting accent and had a way of asking questions and answering them for you. He was an affable, approachable sort of man but today there was a hard edge to his tone.

‘I’m not too bad,’ she said. ‘Almost ready to pop, but there’s nothing I can do about that at this stage. Is there something I can help you with?’

‘Is Donal there, he is?’

‘He’s off somewhere on a job,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where but he’ll be back soon.’

‘This concerns you as well. We’re going to need both of you to come into the station to answer a few more questions – nine o’clock in the morning. Is that all right for you, it is?’

She curled the cord of the telephone round her finger, pulled it tight. ‘Has something happened?’ she said.

‘There’s been a few developments in the investigation so you’ll come down to the station in the morning, you will?’

‘Investigation?’

‘You’ll come in the morning. Nine o’clock?’

She felt like she was sinking down slowly through soft, cold earth.

‘Dolores, love, are you there?’

‘We’ll see you then,’ Dolores said, and hung up.

She walked to the stairs and eased herself down onto the bottom steps. The child inside her pressed its foot up against her ribs. Madeleine, Jessica, Eric – school, nursery, with her parents. She had asked her mother to take Eric that morning so she could get on with a few things. And at any second her husband would return, and her children would need to be collected, and fed, and washed, and these routines would carry her over into the next day, and the next. And if she didn’t move now, she would miss her chance.

She grabbed the banister and hauled herself to her feet. She lifted the receiver, dialled the station, and asked to be put through to Sergeant Farrelly.

‘Sergeant Farrelly spe—’

‘What if I came in to talk to you?’ she asked.

‘Is that you, Dolores, it is? You’ll come in at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, love, like we discussed.’

‘No. What if I came to talk to you now? Alone.’

Sergeant Farrelly cleared his throat. ‘Dolores, if you come in and talk to us now, I promise that anything you say will be treated with the strictest confidence.’

‘But what will happen to me?’ she asked. She could hear her voice breaking, how each word seemed to splinter, to come apart as it fell from her mouth.

‘Dolores, you’re not in any trouble. If you get in your car and drive down to us now, we’ll look after you. I can call your mother and father and have them meet you at the station. Do you want me to do that for you, love?’

She placed her back against the wall and closed her eyes.