The Hunter

“Heard someone moving about,” Trey says. Her voice has turned jerky. “In the house, like. Real quiet. And then the door opening, the front door, and then it shut again. So I went out to the sitting room to look out the window, see who it was.” She glances up at Nealon. “I wasn’t being nosy. It coulda been my brother, he’s only little, and sometimes he walks in his sleep—”

“Listen,” Nealon says, grinning, “I’ve no problem with anyone being nosy. The nosier the better. Did you see someone?”

Trey takes a tight breath. “Yeah,” she says. “Saw my dad.”

“Doing what?”

“Not doing anything. Going out the gate, just.”

“Right,” Nealon says, very easily. “You’re sure it was him? In the dark?”

“Yeah. The moon was up. Full, like.”

“What did you reckon he was at?”

“At first…” Trey’s head goes farther down, and she scrapes at something on the thigh of her jeans. “I thought maybe he was leaving, like. Going off on us. ’Cause he did before. I was gonna go out to him, try and stop him. Only he didn’t take the car, so…” One shoulder lifts. “I reckoned it was grand. He was just going for a walk ’cause he couldn’t sleep either.”

Her head comes up, and she looks at Nealon straight on. “Only I knew if I said it to you, you’d think he kilt your man Rushborough. And he didn’t. They got on, like. They had no row or anything. My dad, that same night he was talking about how he was gonna bring your man to see this aul’ abbey up in Boyle, ’cause your man was into history—like, that’s the way he talked about him, just a guy he knew that was in town, not like he was—”

“Jaysus, young one, breathe,” Nealon says, leaning back and holding up his hands. “You’ll give yourself the head-staggers. Cross my heart and hope to die, I’ve never thrown a fella in jail for going outside his own gate. Like you say, your da probably just needed some air. How long was he gone?”

Trey leaves a second of silence. “Dunno. I went back to bed.”

“After how long?”

“A bit.”

“Go on, give us a guess. Ten minutes? Half an hour? An hour?”

“Half an hour, maybe? Coulda been less. Just felt long ’cause I was…” Trey twitches one shoulder.

“You were worrying he’d done a runner,” Nealon says matter-of-factly. “So would I have been. You didn’t go after him, just to make sure?”

“Nah. I wasn’t that worried, like. Just wanted to wait and see him come back. Only…”

“Only he didn’t.”

“He musta done, only I got tired. Falling asleep. So I went to bed. Woke up early, but, and I kept wondering, so I went to check if he was in his room.”

“And he was?”

“He was, yeah. Sleeping. Only by then I was awake. And Banjo—my dog—he was looking for a walk, and I didn’t want him waking everyone else. So I brought him out.”

“And that’s when you found Rushborough.”

“Yeah. The rest was like I told you before.” Trey catches a quick breath, almost a sigh. Her face has loosened: the hard part is over. “That’s why I stayed there so long, before I headed to Cal’s. I was trying to think what to do.”

Lena has stopped watching for her to put a foot wrong. She’s sitting still, holding her mug and taking in the new subtleties unfurling in Trey, the intricacies that just a few months back she couldn’t have fit into her mind, never mind put into skilled action. Trey may be doing Ardnakelty’s bidding, but her aims and her reasons are all hers. She’s not the townland’s creature in this, or Lena’s, or Cal’s: she’s rising up as no one’s creature but her own. Lena knows probably she should be afraid for Trey, for where this indomitability might land her—Cal would be—but she can’t find that in herself. All she finds is an explosion of pride, firing through her so fiercely she feels like Nealon will sense it and turn. She keeps her face prim.

“Tell us something,” Nealon says, tilting his chair on its back legs and sipping his tea. “Makes no difference to the investigation, I’m just curious. What made you change your mind today?”

Trey shrugs uncomfortably. Nealon waits.

“I was stupid, before. Made a hames of it.”

“How’s that?”

“I wasn’t trying to get anyone in trouble. I just wanted you to leave my dad alone. I thought, if I didn’t say any names, you couldn’t go hassling anyone. Only…”

“Only instead,” Nealon says, with a grin, “I went around hassling everyone. Is that it?”

“Yeah. It all went to shi— to bits. I didn’t— I never expected that. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Ah, you’re fifteen, for Jaysus’ sake,” Nealon says tolerantly. “Teenagers never think ahead; that’s their job. Was it something Missus Dunne here said to you that made you change your mind?”