Eye for an Eye Read Free

what you did. He’ll just be happy that you decided to come to Him at long last and ask for His mercy.’
    ‘You’re not a priest, though,’ said Mary.
    ‘No, I’m not, but I hear more confessions than any priest ever will,’ Katie told her. ‘I may not have the authority to forgive, but I can understand, and for somebody to understand what you’ve done wrong, and why you did it – that’s much more cleansing to the soul than forgiveness.’
    Mary was silent for a few moments, sucking at her teeth and thinking. Then she said, ‘Do you mind if your man leaves us, while I tell you?’
    Katie turned around to Detective O’Donovan. ‘Patrick, would you go and see if Bill Phinner’s finished yet?’
    Detective O’Donovan gave her the thumbs up and left the living room. Once she was sure he was gone, Mary leaned forward and took hold of Katie’s arm, gripping it so tight that Katie could feel her fingernails digging into her through her sweater. She smelled of stale lavender and dried urine.
    ‘My late husband Tadhg had a drink problem. He was on the meat counter at Dunnes Stores and he lost his job because he was always langered and they couldn’t trust him with the knives or the bacon-slicer no more, not unless they wanted fingers in with the rashers.’
    ‘Go on,’ said Katie. Behind those magnifying spectacles she could see that Mary’s eyes were looking inwards now, focused on the past.
    ‘We were so skint that I could barely put food on the table and of course we had three children in them days. They were used to eating bacon and tripe, but after Tadhg lost his job they had to make do with bread and dripping.’
    She paused, and then she said, ‘It was little Kieran’s fourth birthday and I didn’t even have enough grade in my purse to bake him a cake, let alone buy him a present. I went to a friend to see if I could borrow some money off her. She was out, but her husband was in. Barry, his name was. He had fair curly hair, but wiry, you know, like a goat’s hair? I told him why I was there and he said that he’d give me twenty punts and that I’d never have to pay him back, so long as he could take me upstairs to bed.
    ‘I was a pretty young thing in them days. You wouldn’t believe it to look at me now, but all the men used to give me the eye.’
    ‘So you went to bed with Barry?’ said Katie, gently but firmly lifting Mary’s arm off her sleeve.
    Mary nodded. It was plain from the expression on her face that after all these years she was still mortified by what she had done.
    ‘I bought Kieran a plastic train set and I baked him a cake, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat even a morsel of that cake, and every time I saw him playing with that train set I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Barry and his wiry fair hair.’
    ‘Didn’t your husband ever ask you where you got the money from?’
    ‘I told Tadhg I’d borrowed it from my friend Fiona, and to be honest with you, I think he was too drunk to care.’
    ‘So that’s why you imagine that you’re going to be dragged to Hell?’ Katie asked her.
    ‘It’s nothing to do with my imagination, Detective Superintendent. It’s real and it’s true. I betrayed my husband’s trust and broke my marriage vows and committed adultery, all for the sake of twenty punts. The Devil knows where I live now and he’s going to be taking my soul down to burn in the fire.’
    Katie looked at her narrowly. ‘What do you mean, Mary – the Devil knows where you live? I’m not sure that I understand you.’
    ‘He’s been appearing in my garden. Satan himself. He’s been appearing for weeks now, so I daren’t even go out to hang up my washing. Why do you think I called Father Fiachra? I was desperate.’
    ‘Serious? You’ve been seeing Satan in your garden?’
    Mary nodded again, and crossed herself, and then crossed herself a second time.
    ‘Okay...’ said Katie. ‘So what does he look like? Does he have horns, and a tail?’
    ‘No,