I parked at the side of the road and got out of the car. There was a disconsolate little huddle of protesters on the shoulder (it was still untouched, so far; the chestnuts were starting to fall again), waving hand-lettered signs-Save Our Heritage, History Is Not For Sale-in case the media showed up again. The raw, churning earth seemed to go on and on into the distance, it seemed huger than the dig had ever been, and it took me a few moments to realize why this was: that last strip of wood was almost gone. Pale, splintered trunks; roots exposed, thrusting crazily at the gray sky. Chainsaws were gibbering at the handful of trees that were left.
The memory smacked me in the solar plexus so hard it took my breath away: scrambling up the castle wall, crisp packets crackling in my T-shirt and the sound of the river chuckling somewhere far below; Peter's runner searching for a foothold just above me, Jamie's blond flag flying high among the swaying leaves. My whole body remembered it, the familiar scrape of stone against my palm, the brace of my thigh muscle as I pushed myself upwards, into the whirl of green and exploding light. I had become so used to thinking of the wood as the invincible and stalking enemy, the shadow over every secret corner of my mind; I had completely forgotten that, for much of my life, it had been our easy playground and our best-loved refuge. It hadn't really occurred to me, until I saw them cutting it down, that it had been beautiful.
At the edge of the site, near the road, one of the workmen had pulled a squashed packet of cigarettes from under his orange vest and was methodically patting down his pockets for a lighter. I found mine and went over to him.
"Ta, son," he said through the cigarette, cupping his hand around the flame. He was somewhere in his fifties, small and wiry, with a face like a terrier: friendly, noncommittal, with bushy eyebrows and a thick handlebar mustache.
"How's it going?" I asked.
He shrugged, inhaled and handed the lighter back to me. "Ah, sure. I've seen worse. Bleeding great rocks everywhere, that's the only thing."
"From the castle, maybe. This used to be an archaeological site."
"You're telling me," he said, nodding towards the protesters.
I smiled. "Found anything interesting?"
His eyes returned sharply to my face, and I could see him giving me a quick, concise appraisaclass="underline" protester, archaeologist, government spy? "Like what?"
"I don't know; archaeological bits and pieces, maybe. Animal bones. Human bones."
His eyebrows twitched together. "You a cop?"
"No," I said. The air smelled wet and heavy, rich with turned earth and latent rain. "Two of my friends went missing here, back in the eighties."
He nodded thoughtfully, unsurprised. "I remember that, all right," he said. "Two young kids. Are you the little fella was with them?"
"Yeah," I said. "That's me."
He took a deep, leisurely drag on his cigarette and squinted up at me with mild interest. "Sorry for your trouble."
"It's a long time ago," I said.
He nodded. "We've found no bones that I know of. Rabbits and foxes might've turned up, maybe; nothing bigger. We'd have called the cops if we had."
"I know," I said. "I was just checking."
He thought about this for a while, gazing back over the site. "One of the lads found this, earlier," he said. He went through his pockets, working from the bottom up, and pulled something out from under the vest. "What d'you make of that, now?"
He dropped the thing into my palm. It was leaf-shaped, flat and narrow and about as long as my thumb, made of some smooth metal coated matt black with age. One end was jagged; it had snapped off something, a long time ago. He had tried to clean it up, but it was still patched with small, hard encrustations of earth. "I don't know," I said. "An arrowhead, maybe, or part of a pendant."
"Found it in the muck on his boot, at the tea break," the man said. "He gave it to me to bring home to my daughter's young fella; mad into the old archaeology, he is."
The thing was cool in my palm, heavier than you would expect. Narrow grooves, half worn away, formed a pattern on one side. I tilted it to the light: a man, no more than a stick-figure, with the wide, pronged antlers of a stag.
"You can hang on to that if you like," the man said. "The young fella won't miss what he's never had."
I closed my hand over the object. The edges bit into my palm; I could feel my pulse beating against it. It should probably have been in a museum. Mark would have gone nuts over it. "No," I said. "Thank you. I think your grandson should have it."
He shrugged, eyebrows jumping. I tipped the object into his hand. "Thank you for showing it to me," I said.
"No bother," the man said, tucking it back into his pocket. "Good luck."
"You, too," I said. It was starting to rain, a fine, misty drizzle. He threw his cigarette butt into a tire track and headed back to work, turning up his collar as he went.
I lit a cigarette of my own and watched them working. The metal object had left slender red marks across my palm. Two little kids, maybe eight or nine, were balancing on their stomachs across the estate wall; the workmen waved their arms and shouted over the roar of machinery till the kids disappeared, but a minute or two later they were back again. The protesters put up umbrellas and handed around sandwiches. I watched for a long time, until my mobile began vibrating insistently in my pocket and the rain started to come down more heavily, and then I put out my cigarette and buttoned my coat and headed back to the car.
Author's Note
I've taken a number of liberties with the workings of the Garda Síochána, the Irish police force. To pick the most obvious example, there is no Murder squad in Ireland-in 1997 various units were amalgamated to form the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which assists local officers in investigating serious crimes, including murder-but the story seemed to require one. I owe David Walsh special thanks for helping me with a wild variety of questions about police procedure. All inaccuracies are mine and not his.
Acknowledgments
I owe huge debts of thanks to a lot of people: Ciara Considine, my editor at Hodder Headline Ireland, whose unerring instincts, unfailing kindness and enthusiasm have helped this book forward, from start to finish, in too many ways to count; Darley Anderson, super-agent and dream-maker, who has left me speechless more times than anyone I know; his amazing team, especially Emma White, Lucie Whitehouse and Zoë King; Sue Fletcher and Kendra Harpster of Viking Penguin, editors extraordinaires, for their breathtaking faith in this book and for knowing exactly how to make it better; Helena Burling, whose kindness gave me the haven in which to write this; Oonagh "Bulrushes" Montague, Ann-Marie Hardiman, Mary Kelly and Fidelma Keogh, for holding my hand when I needed it most and keeping me more or less sane; my brother, Alex French, for fixing my computer on a regular basis; David Ryan, for waiving nonintellectual property rights; Dr. Fearghas ÓCochláin, for the medical bits; Cheryl Steckel, Steven Foster and Deirdre Nolan, for reading and encouraging; the BB, for helping me bridge the culture gap; all of PurpleHeart Theatre Company, for their ongoing support; and, last but so very far from least, Anthony Breatnach, whose patience, support, help and faith have been beyond words.
