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  The roads were quiet. Approaching the main country vein, the streets were illuminated by the orange glow of the streetlamps. The line of detached houses on either side would come to life in the afternoon, children outside playing with one another, kicking football or playing tag. Usually, when they saw his car approach, they would gather and run alongside it. They even had a name for it – The Godpod. Not hard to spot, their keen eyes could see it a mile away. It was an '84 Fiat Punto, an obscenely bright, canary yellow paintjob that probably held some of the vehicle together. The car suffered from a kind of psoriasis, shedding flakes of skin especially in the warm heat of Summer.

  The last census for Ballygorm was taken in the year 2009, the year after Regan moved to the village. It stated that there were 423 residents, a number which, by now, had probably edged into the 500s thanks in part to the McGregor brood. At the end of every year, the mother would spit out another Christmas gift to the community; the McGregor’s multiplying like watered gremlins.

  In the town, 78 percent aligned with the Roman Catholic faith. The percentage of those that practiced was probably much lower, Regan estimated. The minority were predominantly protestant and they huddled around one housing estate. Safety in numbers.

  It was an aging village. Its residents a hardy breed living longer than their contemporaries in the nearest town, some twenty miles away. Most worked in agriculture or construction, born into it courtesy of parent’s keen to preserve their stock and keep the land for the family. Generations of tough living left the men looking like how men should look - lean and muscled, although it also left the women looking like men too. With the outdoor exercise and bountiful clean air, the young rarely became ill. When they did, self-diagnosis was usually the first port of call, prioritising tried and tested family cures passed from generation to generation with success over decades – preferring such remedies to the latest breakthroughs in medical science.

  There was a phrase that was used, common only to the villagers, attracting confusion from neighbouring villages where the local produce was often sold, and business was exchanged. It worked as well as any balm or medication.

  “It’ll harden ye.”

  A hurling ball smashes into the face of a young teen and splatters the nose flat like a broken egg.

  “It’ll harden ye,” the players would say, scooping him off the floor and playing on.

  An elderly woman holding the face of her adult daughter against her flat chest, as tears pour from the grief of a divorce.

  “It’ll harden ye.”

  Waking up with a stomping hangover and a crying baby thrown into your arms by an angry wife.

  “It’ll harden ye.”

  Roughly translated, it meant that whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger, but said in the inimitable country brogue it seemed to connect with a deeper truth. Life in Ballygorm was tough.

  Weaving through the village, Regan glanced at some of the passing houses, seeing them as if with fresh eyes. Widow Bovey's house with the intricate high gates and lion’s heads atop the pillars, the badly kept white-walled terrace house of the obese Clegg twins where ivy had begun to close over the solitary window.

  As the orange dawn light peeked through a crack on the horizon, Regan felt the gentle stir of life awaken in the village. Without noise, the little car rolled on past the sleeping residents to the edge of what was civilisation for Ballygorm. As he entered the newly-built estate on a hill rise, he could see that among the collection of houses, only one showed signs of life. As the car approached it, Regan saw the man hovering at its front door, pacing nervously. His head was down and he pulled on a cigarette, shoulders hunched over like he was fighting the cold.

  The man saw the half-dimmed beam of headlights enter the estate and up the avenue, coming to rest outside the house. He took one last heavy drag before stomping out the cigarette, rubbed his hands quickly and approached the driver as he got out.

  “Father, I'm glad you came.”

  “Thought you gave up the cigs, Tommy?”

  Tommy Docherty looked sheepish, managed a half smile and shrugged his big shoulders. In his mid-twenties, he looked like that twelve-year-old kid at a family party who had drunk the last suds of a stray beer bottle.

  “You're better off without them. They can't be good for your training.”

  Before Docherty's eyes moved back up to Fr Regan, the priest felt that they seemed to settle for a moment on something behind him, in the car. Remembering the floor of empty cans, he suddenly shared some of the man's mild embarrassment and closed the car door.

  “Anyway. Tell me, what kind of state is she in?”

  “Well, distressed as you can imagine father. I can't get through to her.”

  They walked from the car and onto the tiny paved path that led to the door. The stretch was only a few metres long but they walked slowly, talking in a respectful whisper. There was no breeze, but the cold air still seemed to crawl its way inside the shirt of Fr Regan. He felt it tighten around his chest the closer they moved to the door.

  “I'm sure you did your best. Are the young ones awake?”

  “I don't know, to be honest.”

  They stopped at the door and Regan had ascended one of the front steps and found that he was still shorter than the officer. The priest’s hand was on the handle but as he tried to turn it, it wouldn't budge.

  “That's what I mean. I couldn't get through. I rang the bell, and she came and I told her about Lewis. Then she starts screaming at me and slams the door in my face.”

  “And that's when you called me?”

  “Exactly father. I didn't know what to do, what with the kids in the house. I thought she might do something mental like. So I been sat out here minding things 'til you arrive.”

  “No problem Tommy. You did the right thing. I'll take it from here.”

  Regan opened the letter box and peered inside the house. The interior was familiar to him like most of the residents of the village who were part of his parish. Part of his weekly duties involved attending the sick and elderly and he had spent several days in the Tighe household the year before as they nursed the elderly Maeve, mother of Lewis.

  “Louise. It's Father Regan. Can you hear me?” he said in a soft voice, mindful of any sleepers within.

  He cocked an ear to the opening and felt the heat from inside the house warm it. He tried again but didn't get a response. A small tinny noise from within caught his attention.

  “Let's try around the back,” Fr Regan whispered.

  On one side of the house was a garage. But despite his strength, Docherty couldn't prise the garage door open. On the other side of the building was a gate that slid open easily into a brick-paved backyard. Three different coloured refuse bins stood against the wall forcing the men to walk sideways to slip past. A small trampoline, covered by protective netting, sat in a corner toward the back wall. There was a modest rockery of flowers which looked lifeless and dead in the thin light.

  Regan pointed to a water feature in the garden, newly installed since his last visit. Water piped from within a bed of rocks and cascaded down a channel into a small pool that contained goldfish. A memory from the past swam into Regan’s thoughts, a conversation with Lewis Tighe about the feature.

  “Beautiful,” Docherty said, pausing to notice it.

  “Isn’t it?” Regan replied. “Lewis was building it last time we met. For the kids. Said that the sound of the water helped them drop off to sleep at night.”

  The gentle lapping of water on the rocks continued, framing the image in Regan’s mind of children playing in the shallow depths. He looked up at the closed windows, and his face pulled into a frown.

  Docherty tried the back door but found it locked. When he turned to inform Regan, he found the priest was standing on an upturned empty pot plant under a back window. His hands were narrowed around his eyes as if using them as binoculars, peering into the darkness of the room beyond.

  “Should we call...” Docherty did
n't get a chance to finish his sentence. As he was speaking the priest vaulted off his pot and ran to the back door and began banging it hard with his fist.

  “Jesus Tommy. We need to open this door NOW!”

  FIVE

  Regan picked up the two cups from the kitchen counter top and was about to turn before his eyes landed on the kitchen knife. He parked the cups back down, careful not to spill their contents, opened up a drawer and slipped the knife inside under a chopping board.

  When he re-entered the living room, brightening dawn filtered through the living room windows lifting his mood.

  “Two sugars, right?”

  There was no response from the woman on the couch. The priest placed a cup on the wooden coffee stand by her side as he sat and cradled his own warm mug. He wrapped his fingers around the brew, enjoying its warmth and the rich aromatic smell that seemed to breathe back his senses. It was still too hot to drink so he let it sit on his lap, careful not to spill it over his neatly pressed trousers.

  “I wasn’t going to do anything with it. I wouldn’t let my wains wake up and see their mammy like that.”

  “I know,” Regan said. “Louise, I know you're in pain. Lewis was a great man.”

  The woman continued to look ahead, impassive, showing no emotion. Her face still maintained a youthful curve that hadn't yet been hardened by time or stress. But under the light of the new day, those rounded features now took on a bloated, puffy quality that seemed to age her beyond her thirty-seven years. Her chestnut hair fell onto her face in thick strands like spider legs. Hands were placed on her pregnant belly, where the cardigan she wore rode up exposing a sliver of pale skin below that was tight as a drum.

  Regan turned from her and looked around the sitting room. An artificial grille fireplace was the centrepiece of the room. He imagined the young couple spending many nights in front of it, curled up on the couch watching a movie or mapping out their future and discussing their hopes and dreams for their children. Framed photographs lined the mantle. Younger faces, tanned and carefree. Cutting the wedding cake. Sipping cocktails at the beach. Their smiles seemed insulting now and Regan turned away from them, unable to meet the eyes of Lewis. He had opened a window and took the opportunity to suck in a slow, deep breath.

  “Louise, you need to talk to me here. I know it's hard.” Still, she continued to ignore him and kept her gaze fixed ahead at the empty fireplace in front. “For little Matthew and Samantha, you need to be strong for them.”

  Whether it was his softly spoken words or the smell of coffee percolating through the air which seemed to trigger some sense of reality, Louise Tighe's hard countenance suddenly wavered and for the first time she noticed the coffee mug by her side, and reached for it.

  Feeling reassured, Fr Regan watched as she took a long draw of the coffee which seemed to restore some life to her. There was still an air of detachment as if she was caught in a daydream. Not quite all there.

  “Listen, this … isn’t the way out Louise. I can't imagine what you must be feeling, but you need to think of your children.” The woman gave a derisory snort but Regan continued. “They'll be awake soon and will want to know where their father is.”

  “So do I father! So do I!” she said, turning to him and staring straight into his face. Her eyes were dry sand beds, scorched by fallen tears, and her wild distress made him avert his own gaze. “He didn't come home last night is all I know. Then I get that jackass shouting through the letter box. Doing my bloody head in.”

  She stopped herself just short as emotion threatened to completely overtake her. Managing to fight it back, she necked the remainder of the coffee before slipping back into her quiet reflective mode, save for a foot which she bounced on its heel as if giving vent to her inner distress.

  “It’s OK. I sent him off. I’ll speak with him later. Is there anything I can get you?” he asked and gently touched her hands which were clasped tight together.

  She felt cold to the touch, and he half expected her to recoil but she didn't. Her breath was shallow and staggered. But at his touch, the last wall in her defences crumbled. Regan could see her expression softening and her eyes closed tight under her hands which moved to her face. The gentle sobbing beneath started slowly at first, but as the priest extended his arm to her shoulder, she fell into his chest and it came out in a flood. He felt her quiver in his arms, the pained noises in his ear making him close his own eyes.

  They heard a sudden shuffling from behind and, turning, Regan saw a little girl with pigtails hovering in the doorway. She was sucking her thumb and staring at him. Her other hand was holding a pink Teddy bear, which she hugged tight to her chest.

  “Mammy. Are you OK?”

  Louise Tighe unhooked herself from Regan and wiped the tears from her face before turning to her daughter and smiling. The smile gave no encouragement to the little girl who, if anything, retreated further from them. Her eyes began to water as she looked from adult to adult, pulling the bear tighter to her face.

  “Come here, baby. Sit with your Mammy. She needs her wee girl right now.”

  SIX

  The corpse of Lewis Tighe was taken from Joe Boyd’s barn to the coroner's office in the neighbouring town of Reamcastle.

  The coroner’s report that morning ruled it as a textbook suicide. Asphyxiation by hanging. The deceased's wrists were bound tightly with cable ties and held behind his back to prevent last minute resistance. The struggle could have lasted anywhere up to twenty to thirty minutes until eventually the deceased would have lost consciousness. Starved of oxygen the body's muscles would finally stop tensing and sink, causing the noose to fully catch the neck and squeeze the trachea to an aperture the size of a pea.

  The coroner said death would have occurred just after midnight, almost six hours before the farmer had found the body.

  “No signs of struggle? Foul play?” Officer Mooney asked the coroner.

  “None. Like I said, I’ll put it in the report. Open and shut case.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Jeez, Mark. He only cashed in his chips this morning. Give me time!”

  “Of course. Very sad,” said Mooney without looking up from Lewis Tighe’s body. He pinched his wet nose and wiped his hip with the hand.

  “Maybe for you,” Coroner Cleverley said and noticed the Chief Superintendent look up at him. “Keeps me in a job.”

  He snapped off the latex gloves and dumped them in a small bin in the corner, and then removed his surgical mask before ushering Mooney out of the room. The mask hid a crop of acne scars dotted on sunken cheeks. A curved elliptical moon scar ran from a lip edge up to his cheek, fat and pink like a rag worm.

  “Come on,” Cleverley said. “I haven't even had my caffeine fix yet.”

  The two men walked side by side along the narrow hallway which was well lit with fluorescent overhead lights. Cleverley took a pair of dark shades from his shirt pocket and put them on.

  “You look like you had a late night.”

  The coroner looked across at Mooney, gave a knowing smile and nodded his head as if enjoying a private memory. He was a couple of decades younger than Mooney, on the cusp of thirty, depending on the generosity of the guesser. Cleverley’s head was shaved and gleamed like a cue ball under the lighting.

  Both men reached the end of the hallway and stopped at a vending machine. Cleverley fumbled inside his jean pocket which was weighed down by coins, pulled out a handful of shrapnel and stuffed it into the machine, which coughed up a Coke in return.

  “Want one? I got loads of coins.”

  “No, I could do with a nap soon enough. Been awake for thirty hours. Might grab one at the station later when we wrap up here.”

  “When are they coming around?”

  Mooney yawned and held the back of his palm to his mouth fighting the tiredness. He flicked a shirt sleeve around to check his watch.

  “Any minute now I imagine. Let’s hope she’s calmed down.”

  “Bats
hit crazy?”

  “Well,” Mooney said, “Tommy had a bit of trouble trying to calm her down at the house.”

  “He wasn’t with you this morning at Boyd’s?”

  “No. Myself and Steady were working the graveyard shift. Called Tommy to deliver the news though.”

  “Talk about the short straw,” Cleverley said.

  “’Bout time some of the younger crew got to do the dirty work. I’m getting too old in the tooth for this. Anyway, they’ll be here soon enough.”

  “Well,” Cleverley said. “Let’s hope her husband isn't still pitching a tent by then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You mean you didn’t notice?” Mooney shook his head. Cleverley laughed and took a big swig of the coke which almost emptied the can before wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his white coat. “I call it the Death Rod.”

  “The what?”

  “Let me explain,” Cleverley started, removing his glasses and stared at the bemused officer. “It's a post-death hard-on. With hangings, the person experiences extreme physical pressure on a part of the brain known as the cerebellum. This little pocket of nerves is activated and a side effect is that it gives the old tackle one last triumphant stand.”

  “And you're saying that...”

  “Yeah!” he replied and began laughing. “The stiff has a stiffy! Now if only they could bottle that secret, they'd make millions.”

  “They do. It's called Viagra. Not that a man of my age would know anything about that.”

  “Viagra is tame compared to this stuff, Mark. That guy has been hot to trot since he was wheeled in here three hours ago. You can understand why there’s a market for the S&M stuff. I might have to go staple that thing down before the wife comes in. Speaking of which.”

  The double doors ahead of them opened and a pale young woman approached and greeted both men. Addressing the coroner, her serious expression twisted into a smile which, once it had landed on her face, she struggled to control.