“This one time? When I was here and your phone rang and you went in the bedroom?”
I could hear her gearing up towards something big. So could Shay: the first beginnings of a wary edge were growing in his voice. “Yeah?”
“I broke my pencil and I couldn’t find my sharpener because Chloe took it in Art. I waited for ages, but you were on the phone.”
Shay said, very gently, “So what did you do?”
“I went and looked for another pencil. In that chest of drawers.”
A long silence, just a woman gabbling hysterically from the telly downstairs, muffled under all those thick walls and heavy carpets and high ceilings. Shay said, “And you found something.”
Holly said, almost inaudibly, “I’m sorry.”
I almost went straight through that door without bothering to open it. Two things kept me outside. The first one was that Holly was nine years old. She believed in fairies, she wasn’t sure about Santa; a few months back, she had told me that when she was little a flying horse used to take her for rides out her bedroom window. If her evidence was ever going to be a solid weapon—if, someday, I wanted someone else to believe her—I had to be able to back it up. I needed to hear it come out of Shay’s mouth.
The second thing was that there was no point, not now, in bursting in there with all guns blazing to save my little girl from the big bad man. I stared at the bright crack of light around the door and listened, like I was a million miles away or a million years too late. I knew exactly what Olivia would think, what any sane human being would think, and I stood still and left Holly to do my dirtiest work for me. I’ve done plenty of dodgy things in my time and none of them kept me awake at night, but that one is special. If there’s a hell, that moment in the dark hallway is what will take me there.
Shay said, like he was having a hard time breathing, “Did you say that to anyone?”
“No. I didn’t even know what it was, till just a couple of days ago I figured it out.”
“Holly. Love. Listen to me. Can you keep a secret?”
Holly said, with something that sounded horrifically like pride, “I saw it ages ago. Like months and months and months, and I never said anything.”
“That’s right, you didn’t. Good girl yourself.”
“See?”
“Yeah, I see. Now can you go on doing the same, can you? Keeping it to yourself?”
Silence.
Shay said, “Holly. If you tell anyone, what do you think will happen?”
“You’ll get in trouble.”
“Maybe. I’ve done nothing bad—d’you hear me?—but there’s plenty of people won’t believe that. I could go to jail. Do you want that?”
Holly’s voice was sinking, a subdued undertone aimed at the floor. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. Even if I don’t, what’ll happen? What do you think your da’s going to say?”
Uncertain flutter of a breath, little girl lost. “He’ll be mad?”
“He’ll be livid. At you and me both, for not telling him about it before. He’ll never let you back here; he’ll never let you see any of us again. Not your nana, not me, not Donna. And he’ll make dead sure your mammy and your auntie Jackie don’t find a way around him this time.” A few seconds, for that to sink in. “What else?”
“Nana. She’ll be upset.”
“Nana, and your aunties, and all your cousins. They’ll be in bits. No one will know what to think. Some of them won’t even believe you. There’ll be holy war.” Another impressive pause. “Holly, pet. Is that what you want?”
“No . . .”
“Course you don’t. You want to come back here every Sunday and have lovely afternoons with the rest of us, am I right? You want your nana making you a sponge cake for your birthday, just like she did for Louise, and Darren teaching you the guitar once your hands get big enough.” The words moved over her, soft and seductive, wrapping around her and pulling her in close. “You want all of us here together. Going for walks. Making the dinner. Having laughs. Don’t you?”
“Yeah. Like a proper family.”
“That’s right. And proper families look after each other. That’s what they’re for.”
Holly, like a good little Mackey, did what came naturally. She said, and it was still just a flicker of sound but with a new kind of certainty starting somewhere underneath, “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Not even your da?”
“Yeah. Not even.”
“Good girl,” Shay said, so gently and soothingly that the dark in front of me went seething red. “Good girl. You’re my best little niece, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll be our special secret. Do you promise me, now?”
I thought about various ways to kill someone without leaving marks. Then, before Holly could promise, I took a breath and pushed open the door.
They made a pretty picture. Shay’s flat was clean and bare, almost barracks-tidy: worn floorboards, faded olive-green curtains, random bits of characterless furniture, nothing on the white walls. I knew from Jackie that he had been living there for sixteen years, ever since crazy old Mrs. Field died and left the place empty, but it still looked temporary. He could have packed up and gone on a couple of hours’ notice, without leaving a trace behind.
He and Holly were sitting at a little wooden table. With her books spread out in front of them, they looked like an old painting: a father and daughter in their garret, in any century you picked, absorbed together in some mysterious story. The pool of light from a tall lamp made them glow like jewels in that drab room, Holly’s gold head and her ruby-red cardigan, the deep green of Shay’s jumper and the blue-black gloss on his hair. He had put a footstool under the table, so Holly’s feet wouldn’t dangle. It looked like the newest thing in the room.
That lovely picture only lasted a split second. Then they leaped like a pair of guilty teenagers caught sharing a spliff; they were the image of each other, all panicked flash of matching blue eyes. Holly said, “We’re doing maths! Uncle Shay’s helping me.”
She was bright red and wildly obvious, which was a relief: I had been starting to think she was turning into some ice-cold superspy. I said, “Yep, you mentioned that. How’s it going?”
“OK.” She glanced quickly at Shay, but he was watching me intently, with no expression at all.
“That’s nice.” I wandered over behind them and had a leisurely look over their shoulders. “Looks like good stuff, all right. Have you said thank you to your uncle?”
“Yeah. Loads of times.”
I cocked an eyebrow at Shay, who said, “She has. Yeah.”
“Well, isn’t that rewarding to hear. I’m a big believer in good manners, me.”
Holly was almost hopping off her chair with unease. “Daddy . . .”
I said, “Holly, sweetheart, you go downstairs and finish your maths at Nana’s. If she wants to know where your uncle Shay and I are, tell her we’re having a chat and we’ll be down in a bit. OK?”
“OK.” She started putting her stuff into her schoolbag, slowly. “I won’t say anything else to her. Right?”
She could have been talking to either of us. I said, “Right. I know you won’t, love. You and me, we’ll talk later. Now go on. Scoot.”
Holly finished packing up her stuff and looked back and forth between us one more time—the tangle of shredded expressions on her face, while she tried to get her head around more than any grown adult could have handled, made me want to kneecap Shay all by itself. Then she left. She pressed her shoulder up against my side for a second, on her way past; I wanted to crush her in a bear hug, but instead I ran a hand over her soft head and gave the back of her neck a quick squeeze. We listened to her running down the stairs, light as a fairy on the thick carpet, and the rise of voices welcoming her into Ma’s.
I shut the door behind her and said, “And here I was wondering how her long division had improved so much. Isn’t that funny?”