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‘How’s your mum?’ I asked him, trying to fill the awkward silences she was creating. Deliberately, I suspected.
‘My ma? Aye, she’s grand. Loved having me home. Full Irish every day for breakfast. Reckon I’ve put on weight. What do you think, Ams?’
My mother gave a faint shrug, as if a proper one wasn’t worth the effort.
‘So, she’s better then?’ I continued, confused.
‘Better than what, pumpkin?’
‘I thought you said she was sick.’
Not so much as a flicker.
‘Aye, she was for a while. But she’s okay now.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ my mother said tightly.
Matty chuckled.
‘Not as much as she is.’
‘Can we come up to Brownstone with you some time?’ I asked.
‘You wouldn’t be scared?’
‘Why would we be scared?’ my mother asked, voice icy.
‘After what happened. I was there, you know? At the hunt.’
Her eyes flashed.
‘Hunt?’
‘To find the kid.’ He shook his head, breathed in deeply. ‘Those poor sods. You never get over the loss of a child. Her ma must be about the same age as you, Ams. Looks a bit like you too actually.’
He took a huge bite out of his éclair, smacked the cream off his lips. My mother eyed him in disgust.
‘How can you sit there talking about murder while calmly eating pastries?’
‘How else do you suggest I eat them?’
He was trying to lighten the mood. But she didn’t show so much as a tooth. He changed tack.
‘You don’t need to lecture me, Ams. You have no idea what it was like being a part of all that.’
She said nothing, just gave him the bug eye over the top of her teacup.
‘I was analysing him,’ she told me later, after he’d been charged. ‘Searching for a sign. I was sure he’d say something. That I’d be able to tell. . .’
‘Tell what?’
‘Whether he was involved.’
‘And could you?’
‘No. In fact, the more I dissected what he said, the less sure I was. I didn’t know what to think.’
It was different for me. He was the same Matty he’d always been. The man I loved more than anyone, the closest thing I had to a father. Of course he wasn’t a killer.
