Part 7 (2/2)

'Neighbourhood, Garda, if you don't mind,' said the banker. 'It's not an estate.'

Maloney sighed in exasperation. 'Neighbourhood,' he said. 'They've been causing havoc in the neighbourhood and I must insist that we have a look round.'

'Have you got a search warrant?' asked Lizzie and, before there was time for an answer, she shut the window and turned her back on it.

'Come on, Lizzie,' said Tess. 'Why don't you let them look? They won't find anything.'

'I don't want them poking around in my sheds and my garden, that's why. And I wants to have my dinner.'

'We'll show them around, then, me and Kevin. We'll make sure they don't go poking around. OK, Kevin?'

'Not me,' said Kevin. 'I don't like peelers. You show them around if you like.'

'Right then, I will.'

Tess went out and opened the front door to the three men. They had started out towards the yard, intending to have a look around whatever Lizzie might say. Tess joined them. 'I'll show you around the place,' she said.

Garda Maloney smiled pleasantly and said: 'Very good of you,' but he looked at her just a little too long, and all at once, Tess's blood ran cold. What a fool she was. What a complete and utter fool. Of course her parents would have told the police that she was missing, no matter what she had said in her note to them. She turned away and tried to collect her thoughts. 'Where do you want to look first?' she said.

'Everywhere,' said the banker. 'We'll start in here.' He looked into the woodshed, and the other neighbourhood resident, who was tall and thin and dressed in a ridiculous one-piece down ski-suit, peered in over his shoulder. Garda Maloney, however, seemed more interested in Tess. 'Are you a relative of the old bird, then?' he asked.

'She's not an old bird,' said Tess, thinking like a rat, thinking like a goat, wis.h.i.+ng that she hadn't been so sn.o.bbish and knew what it was to think like a fox. 'She's my Aunt Lizzie. My great-aunt, actually.'

'Ah,' said Maloney.

Tess led the way purposefully towards the henhouse. Lizzie had been around feeding shortly before, and the hens were still gathered around the trough, pecking at the last crumbs of their mash.

The policeman watched them, absently. 'Just down for the day, are you?'

'Yes. My father will be here later to pick us up.'

'I see. You and your brother, is it?'

'Yes.'

He nodded, casually. He wasn't sure where it was he'd seen her face, or even whether he had seen it at all, but there was something about her that was ringing a bell. He could check it out later, when he got back to the station, but in the meantime it was important that he didn't raise her suspicions and drive her off.

'Nice part of the country, isn't it?' he said.

'Not particularly,' said Tess. 'I'd prefer to go to the sea if I had the choice.'

She led them on around the back. Nancy had been milked and put to bed in her own corner of the cowshed. 'If there were any more goats around,' said Tess, 'she'd be going ape. They don't like being on their own, goats don't. But you can look around in the field if you want to. And the orchard's through there.'

'Like animals, do you?' said Maloney.

'Not particularly. But Aunt Lizzie does. She never stops talking about them. There's nothing she doesn't know about animals. And,' she added, conspiratorially, 'nothing she doesn't tell you. Whether you want to know or not.'

Garda Maloney was beginning to think that he was mistaken. This girl was far too relaxed to be on the run. He smiled at her and she shrugged and lifted her eyes to heaven. 'Family duty,' she said.

The other two were just closing the door of the potting shed. 'Nothing there,' said the sporty one.

'No,' said Garda Maloney. 'I think we'd better call it off. With any luck they're on their way back to wherever they came from. If they do turn up again you can let us know, and we'll have another try in the morning.'

'You'll have to get your marksmen with tranquillizer darts,' said Tess.

Maloney laughed. 'Yes, we'll certainly need someone like that. Let's hope that's the end of them, though.' He followed her back to the front of the house and started with the others back up the track. 'Give my regards to your aunt,' he said. Tess looked heavenwards again and ducked in through the doorway.

Kevin and Lizzie were sitting in the fireside chairs. Lizzie was eating stew out of a jelly mould and Kevin was eating his out of a small, dented saucepan with a bent handle.

'We left the dish for you,' said Lizzie, pointing to the hob beside the fire.

'Never mind that,' said Tess, looking daggers at Kevin. 'That was a great bit of thinking, that was, Mr Rat, Mr Street-wise, Mr Hedgehog-brain!' Kevin stared at her in amazement as she went on: 'And you have the nerve to tell me that I'm all right, Jack!'

'What are you talking about?'

'I'm talking about you, looking after Number One. You don't like peelers, oh, no. What about me, then?'

'Children!' said Lizzie. 'Stop squabbling! Where's your manners?'

'Oh, shut up about manners, Lizzie,' snapped Tess. 'And we're not children. This has nothing to do with you. I'm talking to this selfish little swine.'

Kevin was growing darker by the minute, like a heavy cloud, waiting to burst. 'I don't know what she's talking about,' he said.

'I'm talking about the Gardai! I'm talking about missing persons, descriptions, photographs. I'm talking about being on their records!'

Kevin swore. Lizzie looked as if she might object, but changed her mind.

'You should have thought of that, Kevin,' said Tess. 'You should have warned me.'

'It isn't my fault! It was your idea. ”Oh, la di da, come on, Kevin, let's show the nice gentlemen around.” I didn't want to have anything to do with it!'

'But I don't think like you do. I wasn't brought up like that. It's your job to think of things like that!'

'And who do you think you are? Telling me what my job is!' He glared at her with such contempt that her anger evaporated and left a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.

'Come on, now, girls and boys,' said Lizzie. 'Stop arguing and eat your dinner while it's hot.'

Kevin poked around lethargically with his spoon. 'Did he recognise you?' he asked, sulkily.

'I'm not sure. I think he did, but I might have put him off the scent.'

'Not to worry,' said Lizzie. 'No sense in getting edgy, is there?' She handed Tess her stew in the dish they had saved for her. Tess looked at it gloomily. It had DOG written on the side.

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