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the lough shore—entire families of them, in fact. Some of them forged new careers in politics, others took to alcohol, and a few found God. The religious ones were the men whose minds were mangled by what they had seen and done. Through the sacrament of confession he extended God’s forgiveness to them, and in doing so, in their unstable state, he became someone to whom they had to prove themselves constantly. They were his lost flock of sheep, turning up faithfully at all the weekday Masses, giving large donations to the collections, even offering to send him on holidays to Rome and the Holy Land. At funerals, they placed their rough hands on his shoulder and whispered, “Well done, Father.”
    During the Stations of the Cross, he could see them gathered behind his shoulder, reflected in the glass-covered paintings of Christ’s ordeal on Calvary.
    His cataract smarted as he watched them from the altar.
    He saw the cold-eyed blackmailer sitting behind the mother with a young child, and in the back pews, beside the elderly couple with all their sons in America, the murderer who had no heart.
    Their terrible crimes echoed constantly in his mind.
    And then there had been Joseph Devine.
    Father Fee had been drawn by something like tenderness to his pensive face, tilted upward to the statue of the crucifix. An old man struggling with his conscience. All his effort narrowed down to a final battle with the voices in his head.
    His mind went back to Devine’s last confession. It had been an unusual exchange between a confessor and a penitent. Devine had begun by describing his inability to feel joy at the christening of a friend’s granddaughter.
    “I didn’t feel anything, Father,” he had whispered. “It was an effort just to smile. I couldn’t even bring myself to hold the baby in my arms.”
    Father Fee had paused, unable to supply a comforting response. Although they were separated by the metal grille, Devine’s face felt very close. On his breath, he smelled the stale whiff of alcohol.
    “Is what I am afraid of true?” Devine asked him.
    “What are you afraid of?”
    “That I’ll never be at peace with myself.”
    The question worried Father Fee. He rubbed his bad eye before answering.
    “Why wouldn’t you be at peace? God is full of forgiveness. All you have to do is make a full confession in the presence of the Lord.”
    “I do that every month, Father.”
    Father Fee paused again.
    “You’re not telling me the truth,” he chided. “You haven’t come here today to talk about a christening. There’s something else troubling you. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps you are too ashamed to say. I don’t know. The only one who knows is you. And God.”
    He waited for the words to sink in.
    “Nothing else troubles my conscience, Father,” replied Devine, a note of defiance creeping into his voice.
    “Then why are you here?”
    And then the words that Father Fee was expecting came. It was gratifying to discover that shame still had power. Of course, it depended on the community you sprung from, how important its opinion was to you. Informers in this part of the world were regarded as the lowest of the low. Father Fee had heard it said that if you raped your next-door neighbor it would soon be forgotten, but if your grandfather was an informer you would be an outcast all your life.
    In the semidarkness of the booth, the priest felt Devine’s eyes fix on him.
    “I thought I could leave my past deeds behind me, but the voices won’t go away. I was a spy for the British security forces. I did it for the money. Men were killed because of the information I supplied.”
    Father Fee absorbed the revelation. He sighed in preparation for what was to come.
    “How often did this happen?”
    “Too often to remember.”
    “And did you feel any remorse for your actions.”
    “At the start, yes, I felt guilty. My conscience rebuked me. But after that, the sense of shame went. You see, the men I helped kill were