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pint.’
    ‘Oh, only the best at Casey’s,’ Peggy sighed, lifting a bottle of fizzy orange from the shelf behind her. She opened it and poured it into a glass for herself, popping a plastic straw in from a box beside the till. She could drink it more discreetly from a straw. Carla was sitting with a few local lads, soaking up their unbridled admiration. So much for her helping out. Peggy noticed Coleman take another sideways glance at Frank who was standing up to leave. Frank removed his wallet from his back pocket and took out a note. She couldn’t help but notice the strawberry blond hairs on his chest just below his neck, where the top two buttons of his shirt were left open.
    ‘Thank you for that,’ he said to her, leaving the note down on the counter between them. ‘It was very nice.’
    ‘You’re very welcome.’ Peggy took the note and turned quickly to the till to hide her reddening cheeks. She glanced up into the mirror. Frank was standing awkwardly next to Coleman, the older man pointedly ignoring him as he gazed down into his pint.
    ‘Frank, have you met Coleman?’ Peggy said loudly into the till. She turned and handed Frank his change. ‘Coleman has lived in Crumm all his life. He knows more about the area than anyone. Coleman,’ Peggy said, ‘this is Detective Sergeant Frank … ’ she stopped.
    ‘Ryan,’ Frank finished.
    ‘Sorry,’ Peggy said. ‘Detective Sergeant Frank Ryan. He’s down from Dublin because of the body found at the lake. He’s been helping Garda O’Dowd with the … the situation.’
    Peggy waited. Coleman just nodded slowly at his pint, not looking up at either of them.
    ‘Coleman,’ Frank said.
    The older man just nodded again.
    Peggy threw her eyes to heaven. ‘Maybe you might be able to help the guards with their enquiries, Coleman?’ She spoke slowly, as if Coleman might not understand. ‘You having all the local knowledge. About the valley and the lake.’
    Still the older man said nothing.
    ‘He’s not from Dublin, Coleman,’ Peggy said under her breath. She silently implored Frank not to contradict her. ‘He’s just stationed there.’
    ‘Is that right?’ the older man said at last, from a mouth that was clearly short a few teeth. ‘And what part of the world do you hail from, Detective Sergeant?’
    ‘Galway, sir.’ Frank winked at Peggy, who was slowly wiping the already clean counter beside them. ‘I grew up in Galway. My parents are both from Connemara.’
    ‘I see.’ Coleman took a draught of his pint.
    ‘I’ve lived in Dublin for the past ten years though,’ Frank said, a note of defiance in his tone. ‘Longer.’
    ‘I suppose you have a ticket for the match Sunday, so,’ Coleman said.
    Frank thought about the coveted All-Ireland football final ticket he had back in his room in Dublin, wedged in the frame of a picture of Saint Michael his mother had given him. He had a bad feeling that was as close to the Hogan Stand as the ticket was going to get.
    ‘I do’, he said.
    Coleman drained his pint and left it down on the bar, just a fraction farther away from him than before. Without saying a word, Peggy took the glass away, and began to pull another for him.
    ‘Well,’ he said, rubbing his gnarled hands up and down his thighs as if he was trying to massage some life into his legs, ‘at least those bastards from Cork aren’t going to be there.’
    Peggy snorted. ‘Oh, if there’s one thing we like less than people from Dublin around here, it’s people from Cork,’ she laughed, shaking her head at Frank.
    Frank just smiled, and sat back up on the stool he had occupied earlier that evening. ‘So you know the area well,’ he said to Coleman. ‘Do you remember them moving the graves before the dam was built?’
    Coleman looked up at Frank as if he might be mad. ‘Sure wasn’t it I myself who was doing the moving?’ he said, turning back to nod at the fresh pint that Peggy had placed in front of him. He shook his head. ‘It was