Page 130 of Beautiful Scars

“But not my face?”

We start walking around the building and she falls into a comfortable stroll beside me.

She laughs. “Oh, don’t think I’ve never Googled you from time to time. I’ve seen your face change over the years.”

I chuckle. “Did you ever expect anything different from me?”

She looks straight ahead but smiles knowingly. “There was a whole week where Victor thought you might grow up to be a mechanic. But I never doubted you for a second.”

I nudge her gently. “And how is Victor?”

We turn the corner of the building and there are a couple of boys, maybe ten or eleven years old, playing football. One of them misses the shot completely and the ball comes spinning in our direction. I catch it with my foot mid-air and kick it back over to them.

“Seven years he’s been gone,” she replies. “Cancer.”

I glance down at her. “I’m sorry. I always liked Victor.”

“He was a good man,” she says, a beaming smile on her face. “Pain in my arse, but he was my pain, you know?”

I nod my head, a picture of the pain in my own arse dancing around in my head eating crumpets. “All too well.”

She stops walking and looks up at me. Behind us, the fence shakes as the football slams against it repeatedly. “I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say you didn’t come here to reminisce about my stovies, or my Victor.”

Smiling down at her, I nod my head. “An educated stab.”

“Are you in trouble?” Her eyebrows, only just visible behind the rims of her glasses, pull together in a frown.

“Always. But that’s not why I’m here.”

The ball rattles the fence again and Anne-Marie does her best attempt at telling the boys to settle down.

“You sure you can’t just miss my name off the visitor log? I’d rather do this inside.”

She chews the inside of her lip, like this is some big life-changing decision for her, and then nods her head toward the door.

I follow her in. It’s a strange building. It doesn’t know whether it wants to be a home or a nursery or a community hub. Anne-Marie’s office is in the same place, down the hall and off to the left.

And it’s just as messy and haphazard as it always was.

She takes her seat and I sit down at the desk opposite her.

“Spill, Kill,” she says.

That’s what she always said when I’d been up to mischief.

“I have a friend. An important friend. And that person lost something four years ago. I think it might have been hidden here, and I think you’ve been getting money every year to keep it safe.”

I watch her face intently as the cogs turn behind her eyes.

Bewilderment. Realization. And finally...

“Jesus Mary and Joseph. She’syours? Tell me she’s not yours?”

“She’s not mine,” I tell her.

“No, Cillian. Tell me the truth—so help me God.”

I clear my throat. “Swear to God, she’s not mine.”