The Hunter

Johnny runs out of smokes and sends Trey down to Noreen’s for more. This time she doesn’t argue. Maeve exaggerates, and she’d say anything she thinks their dad wants to hear. Trey wants to test the feel of the village for herself.

From outside the shop she can already hear Long John Sharkey’s voice, raised and belligerent: “…in my own fuckin’ house…” When she pushes the door open, he’s at the counter with Noreen and Mrs. Cunniffe, hunched close. At the ding of the bell, all three of them turn.

Trey nods at their blank faces. “Hiya,” she says.

Long John straightens up off the counter and moves forward, blocking her way. “There’s nothing here for you,” he says.

Long John isn’t long—he got the name because he has a stiff knee where a cow kicked him—but he’s built like a bull, with the same bad, pop-eyed stare. People are intimidated by him, and he knows it. Trey used to be. Now she takes the look on him as a good sign.

“Need milk,” she says.

“Then get it somewhere else.”

Trey doesn’t move.

“I’ll decide who comes in my shop,” Noreen snaps.

Long John doesn’t take his eyes off Trey. “Your fuckin’ father needs a few fuckin’ skelps,” he says.

“She didn’t pick her father,” Noreen tells him tartly. “Go on home, before that butter melts on you.”

Long John snorts, but after a moment he shoulders past Trey and bangs out the door, setting the bell jangling.

“What’s wrong with him?” Trey asks, gesturing after him with her chin.

Mrs. Cunniffe sucks in her lips over her buckteeth and cuts her eyes sideways at Noreen. Noreen, swapping out the till roll with fast sharp jerks, looks like she’s not going to answer. Trey waits.

Noreen can never resist a chance to share information. “Them detectives are after giving him awful hassle,” she informs Trey curtly. “Not just him, either. They’ve everyone in the place up to ninety. They got Long John flustered enough that he let slip that one time Lennie O’Connor bet up some lad from Kilcarrow for trying to chat up his missus, and now the detectives do be on at Lennie about what did Rushborough say to Sinéad, and Lennie says he won’t let Long John lease his back field any more, so he’ll have nowhere to put the calves.” She slams the till shut. Mrs. Cunniffe jumps and hoots. “And if your daddy hadn’ta brought that feckin’ gobdaw round here, none of this woulda happened. That’s what’s wrong with him.”

Trey feels the savage surge of triumph right through her. She turns away to the shelves, pulling out bread and biscuits at random, so they won’t see it in her. The power of it feels like she could topple Noreen’s counter with a single kick and set the walls on fire with a press of her hands.

Now all she needs to do is line up her sights. Lena said she could take a guess at who it was that got Brendan, and Trey trusts Lena’s guesses. All she needs is a way to make her tell.

“And forty Marlboro,” she says, dumping her stuff on the counter.

“You’re not eighteen,” Noreen says, starting to ring things up without looking at her.

“Not for me.”

Noreen’s mouth tightens. She jabs the till keys harder.

“Ah, go on and give the child what she wants, Noreen,” Mrs. Cunniffe says, flapping a hand at Noreen. “You’ve to take good care of her, now ye’ll be practically in-laws.” She bursts into a high, one-note hee-hee-hee that carries her out the door.

Trey looks at Noreen for an explanation, but Noreen has her mouth pinched up even tighter and is fussing under the counter among the cigarettes.

“What’d she mean?”

“With Cal and Lena,” Noreen says crisply. She slaps the Marlboros on the counter and rings them up with a neat ding. “That’ll be forty-eight sixty.”

Trey says, “Cal and Lena what?”

Noreen glances up sharply, almost suspiciously. “Getting married.”

Trey stares.

“Did you not know?”

Trey pulls a fifty out of her pocket and hands it over.

“I’da thought Lena woulda asked your permission,” Noreen says, part bitchy, part probing.

“None a my business,” Trey says. She fumbles her change and has to pick it up off the floor. Noreen’s speculative eyes follow her all the way out the door.

The three old guys sitting on the wall of the Virgin Mary grotto watch her pass without changing expression. “Tell your daddy I was asking for him,” one of them says.

Nineteen

Lena is at the washing line when she sees Mart Lavin stumping towards her, across what used to be her and Sean’s back field and is now Ciaran Maloney’s. Her first instinct is to run him off her land. Instead she returns his wave and vows to buy a tumble dryer, since apparently nowadays this bloody place won’t even leave her the pleasure of hanging out her wash in peace. Kojak, trotting ahead, comes to exchange sniffs with Nellie through the fence; Lena gives them a moment and then snaps her fingers, bringing Nellie back to heel.

“That’ll be dry before you get it hung,” Mart says, when he gets close enough. “This heat’s something fierce.”