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are looking down on me, waiting for me to
join them. Padraig was on God’s right hand the day he was buried, baptized or not, and no bastard will ever tell me otherwise.’
    I laid my hand on Reddin’s arm. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said.
    My speaking seemed to bring him back to the present, for he wiped his face quickly with the sleeve of his cardigan and turned to me. ‘I didn’t give you those names,’ he said,
raising a finger towards me. As he spoke he looked past me, waving and smiling genially to one of the other residents who was being led into the room.
    ‘Your eyesight seems to be okay now,’ I said, following his gaze.
    ‘I’ve no bloody idea who they all are,’ he muttered, blinking like Tiresias as he continued to wave. ‘They’re all just outlines. I imagine they’re
good-looking, which helps. I know Maisie, for she always sits in that seat. The rest of them are a blur.’

Chapter Fourteen
    My sergeant, Joe McCready, was standing in the small kitchen in the station in Lifford when I stopped off on the way home. He was pouring himself a coffee with one hand while
his other held his mobile.
    ‘That’s fine, I think. Didn’t he say that was okay?’ His tone was nervous, the speech hesitant, unconvinced.
    I could hear the ghost of the voice on the other end of the call while I poured myself the final coffee from the flask.
    ‘Maybe you should phone and double-check with him.’
    He nodded, though the speaker could clearly not see the gesture.
    ‘I’m not worrying,’ he said. He shifted away from where I was standing and lowered his voice. ‘I just want to be sure everything is okay.’
    I took my coffee and walked down to the office where we worked. It had once been a sizable cleaning store but had been converted for a murder enquiry and had never been changed back again. As I
sat down, the door opened and McCready followed me in. Outside I could hear the main phone ringing.
    ‘Everything all right, Joe? I thought Burgess was the only one in today.’
    He nodded. ‘I’ve bits and pieces of paperwork to do. I fancied getting out of the house for half an hour, to be honest.’
    I nodded at the phone still in his hand. ‘Things getting a bit heavy?’
    ‘Ellen’s having contractions. But it’s too early. She says they’re Branston Hicks.’
    ‘Braxston. I remember Debbie having them.’
    ‘They’re okay, aren’t they?’
    I nodded. ‘She’s how long left?
    ‘About six weeks.’
    ‘They’re perfectly normal.’
    During the conversation, our desk sergeant, Burgess, had pushed open the door. He held a Post-it note in his hand.
    ‘I’m too long in the job when the station chat is about babies,’ he said, without humour. ‘This one will be right up your street. It’s the partner of one of the
Cashell girls. He asked for you directly, Inspector. Apparently his missus’s hearing a baby crying in her baby monitor.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I don’t make the calls, Inspector, I just answer them. He asked for you by name; what do you want me to do?’
    The last time I had seen Christine Cashell had been a year or so after I’d investigated the murder of her sister, Angela. Christine’s father had been a career
criminal, a petty thief and enforcer whose actions had resulted in the death of his daughter. Christine had had a baby then and was working in the local pharmacy, despite being only in her late
teens; she would now be in her mid-twenties.
    When we knocked at the door, it was a young ferret-faced man who answered, snuffling into his hand.
    ‘Are you Devlin?’
    ‘That’s right. This is Garda McCready.’
    He raised his head in acknowledgement of Joe, then nodded at me. ‘She wants you.’
    He stood back to allow us to enter the house, pointing across the hallway to where a door lay ajar. We passed him and went into the room. Christine was lying on the sofa. Though older, she had
not changed that much physically. Her red hair was still striking in its lustre, her