The three men were sitting in the kitchen. The doorbell pierced the silence. Donal got up to answer it.

Cillian eyed his brother across the table. Finn dropped his head and Cillian smiled. He always did have the upper hand where his brother was concerned. His father returned with a woman behind him. Cropped curly hair and black-rimmed spectacles. She was about forty years old. Not much to look at, he thought.

‘This is Cynthia Rhodes. She’s from the telly,’ Donal said.

‘Hi, I’m pleased to meet you all.’ She shook hands and sat down uninvited.

With the four of them seated around the table, Cillian said, ‘Are you going to tell us what this is about?’

‘I don’t like dredging up sad memories, but I want to do a feature for the news on the tenth anniversary of Lynn’s disappearance. It might rekindle an interest in her case.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Donal said.

‘Do you mind if I record this.’ She placed her phone on the table, with its recording app open.

‘I do mind,’ Cillian said, folding his arms. She took a notebook out of her bag. ‘And you can put that away too.’

‘Okay.’ She put her bag on the floor. ‘I’ve seen the posters around town. I thought you would like some more publicity.’

Finn spoke up. ‘Depends on what you mean by publicity.’

Donal said, ‘We miss Lynn so much. And my wife Maura … she died …’

Cillian sighed. He hoped his old man wasn’t going to start blubbering. He’d seen enough tears to last him forever.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Cynthia said. ‘Maybe something will turn up if I do a particularly good feature? Like Crimecall.’

Cillian grunted. ‘The authorities seem to think no body, no crime. But we’ve been without our sister for the last ten years, so in my mind that is a crime.’

‘I agree,’ Cynthia said.

‘Then why are you talking to us?’ Cillian said. ‘Talk to the guards. See what they can tell you.’

‘I tried, but they’re very tight-lipped about it. I thought with the murder of a young woman last seen on the train, they would see the similarity to Lynn’s disappearance.’

‘I heard that. Awful it was,’ Donal said.

‘So, can you tell me anything that might help jog someone’s memory?’

Donal stood up and busied himself folding the newspaper. ‘You know the facts. My daughter worked in the civil service in Dublin. Commuted every day. And on the fourteenth of February 2006, she got the train home as usual, only she never arrived. That morning was the last time any of us laid eyes on her.’

‘And you boys, when did you last see your sister?’

Cillian observed the reporter taking notes surreptitiously in the notebook on her knee. Does she think I can’t see her? ‘We all lived at home then. Lynn got up for the early train. There was only the one early train back then. Me and Finn, we saw her the night before, when we were going to bed. Isn’t that right?’

Finn grunted, head still bowed. Cillian kicked him under the table.

‘That’s right,’ he said.

Standing up, Cillian said, ‘I think the only place you’ll get all the information is from the guards. But we’d appreciate it if you could do a new appeal for information.’

He watched as she flattened one of the posters out on the table. ‘This phone number, is it one of yours? Can I publicise it?’

‘It’s a dedicated number. For information. Not that it does much good. Hasn’t rung in ten years.’ Cillian looked at his father, who by now had the newspaper folded into a small square.

‘Aye, that’s right,’ Donal said.

‘Maybe my news feature will throw up some new suspects for the gardaí.’

‘They never had any suspects in the first place,’ Donal said. ‘I’ll see you out now, Ms Rhodes.’

After she’d left the house, the three O’Donnell men eyed each other. They knew there was one prime suspect who had never come under garda suspicion. They should have said something back then, but they’d never allow the family to suffer that indignity. Never.

---

Carol lay on her side on her bed. Nausea wended its way up from her stomach and settled at the back of her throat. How had she let this happen? She was a fool. She should have told the guards that Elizabeth knew about her pregnancy and the fact that she was much further on than she had intimated.

She figured she had to talk to him soon. To the father of this child growing in her womb. He had been so nice, hadn’t he? After all that had gone before. So understanding of her frustrations with her home life, her gay brother and her dumbass job. Yes, he had been nice to her. But not at the time.

Bloody hell, she thought, it’s a freaking mess.

Her phone lay on the pillow beside her. She’d opened his contact details. Saved under a made-up name, just in case. You can never be careful enough, he’d said. Yeah, she knew he was married. But he had a right to know. Hadn’t he?

Another wave of nausea released itself from her throat and she retched into the bowl she’d placed beside her bed.

How long was this going to last? As a cold sweat broke out on her forehead, she shut off the contact and locked her phone. Not now. She was too sick.

---

The traveller site was lit up like Christmas Eve. Paddy McWard parked his Jeep and had a good look around before entering his home.

His dinner was on a plate in the microwave and Bridie was sitting on the couch with Tommy on her knee.

‘How’s Tommy?’ he said.

‘My face is very painful, thank you for asking.’ Bridie was sulking.

He sat beside her and took his son in his arms. He kissed Tommy’s sweet-smelling hair, and the baby nuzzled into his chest. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you recently.’

‘Why is that, Paddy? Why haven’t you been here? Where have you been? Or am I not allowed to ask?’

‘Please don’t ask and I won’t have to lie to you.’

‘Like that, is it?’ She shuffled away from him but he could see her eyes were on Tommy.

‘I’m not going to hurt our son, nor you, for that matter,’ he said. She was biting her lip. He knew this was a sign that she was desperately trying not to cry. ‘And don’t start bawling. I want you to believe that beating you got had nothing to do with me.’

‘I’m sure it had something to do with whatever you’re involved in. Why else have the guards been swarming around this place for the last few weeks like flies on a shite?’

‘They’re looking for scapegoats. Someone to blame for every fight or burglary in town. And I can tell you here and now, it has nothing to do with me.’

She inched back closer to him. ‘But why would someone break in and beat me up?’

‘I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.’ He could almost feel the heat blazing from her eyes. ‘What?’

‘If it’s nothing to do with you, then it’s because someone thinks I saw something at the graveyard. The night that poor girl was murdered.’

He handed the baby over to her and stood up. ‘You leave it to me. I’ve got two of my cousins keeping an eye on this place, and you’re not to go anywhere without bringing one or both of them with you.’

‘But I did nothing wrong. It’s not fair.’

‘Listen here, this town is a very dangerous place at the minute, so I don’t want you wandering around on your own. I can’t afford to lose you too.’ He pressed the code on the microwave and watched the plate turn under the light.

‘How is your mother?’ he asked. He had to change the subject.

‘What do you mean, you too?’ she said from behind him.

He could smell the expensive perfume he’d bought for her. He wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay. But he didn’t know how to, and anyway, he couldn’t tell her something he didn’t believe himself.

---

They sat in a corner in Cafferty’s, nursing pints of Guinness and suffering each other.

‘The old man is losing it,’ Cillian said.

‘I reckon you’re losing it,’ Finn said.

‘You can talk. I think I’ve just gone off my pint. Don’t know why I even agreed to come here with you.’

‘You know why. You wanted to escape the old man’s trip into madness with Lynn’s anniversary coming up.’

‘He was always mad. Lynn vanishing didn’t make him any worse.’

‘Maybe not, but Mother did.’

‘Don’t mention her.’ Cillian sipped his pint. The bile rising from his stomach soured the taste in his mouth.

‘She adored Lynn.’

‘We all did. Me more than anyone.’ Cillian shrugged his chin down to his chest. He didn’t want to be having this conversation. Least of all with a brother he despised.

‘You’re the lucky one in all of this. You have Keelan and Saoirse.’

Cillian shot his brother a look that he knew could make milk turn. ‘Never, ever talk about my wife and daughter. You made your own bed. Go home and lie in it.’

Finn’s jaw crunched up and down as if he was trying to speak but the words were locked in his throat.

After downing his pint in two swallows, Cillian made for the door. ‘I don’t know how you do it, but every time I have to spend even a minute in your company, I get the urge to kill someone.’

Outside, he stood for a full three minutes in the cold before he could put one foot in front of the other. The collision course that had been mapped out in black and white for them since the day they were born was now flashing in front of his eyes in high definition.

As the chilly air cut through his sweater, he cursed the stubbornness that had made him leave home without his jacket. He didn’t want to return to Keelan. Not just yet. There was someone he would much rather be with.

He made his decision and headed for his car.