"She weren't mine," Mary said. "She was Robert's. We've had her nine years. Then that animal killed her. He hit her with his van."

"Did you see this happen?"

She shook her head, her mouth a tight white line. "No need. He drives in and out of here at all times of the day and night. I came out for her this morning and she was lying dead on the road. He just left her there." Her eyes, red and rheumy, began to weep. "Left her lying," she repeated.

I squatted down to the animal. Despite her claim, it bore no injuries on either side of the body.

"Tammy wouldn't have died of natural causes, Mary?" I asked. "I don't see any sign of injury to her. Maybe it was her time."

"Was her time?" Mary snorted, her eyes glinting fiercely. "He did it. You ask him."

"I'm not sure, Mary," I said, trying to be placatory. "Ask him," she snapped, folding her arms.

"She's not wise," Artie Moran concluded as we stood in his doorway. "You can see from the snow that I wasn't driving last night."

I nodded agreement. "She's just upset," I said. "She's on her own in there."

He rifled through his pocket, produced a fifty-euro note. "That'll buy her a new cat," he explained.

"That's not necessary, Mr Moran," I said. "I know you're not responsible. To be honest, I'm only checking to keep her happy."

He waved away my comment. "Give it to her anyway. I feel kind of sorry for the old woman."

Mary Hannigan watched from the old wooden-framed kitchen window as I struggled to pierce the frozen ground of her garden to bury the cat. I'd been hacking with the old shovel she'd given me for a few minutes with little success though the effort at least allowed me to generate some warmth. Taking a breather, mid-burial, I stood among the snow swirls and lit a cigarette. Leaning on the shovel, I regarded the backs of the houses and tried to ignore Mary's look of annoyance. Something struck me as unusual about her block. Despite the lack of heating in her house, I noticed that the roofs of both her and Moran's houses were free of snow while all the other pairs of houses along the street retained a thick covering of snow on their roofs.

With the burial completed to her satisfaction, Mary made me a cup of tea. She huddled in her seat, her hands clamped around her hot cup.

"That'll warm you up, son," she said, blowing across the surface of the drink before sipping tentatively at it.

"Speaking of which, I think you need your attic insulated, Mary," I said. "Any heat in the house must be escaping through the roof."

She tutted, her jaw set flintily. "It is insulated. Robert insulated it himself a few years before he pa.s.sed away."

Treading carefully, I ventured, "But you've no snow on your roof."

"I'm telling you he did it. Check if you don't believe me."

"I believe you," I said, my hands raised in surrender.

"You believe nothing," she snapped. "Go up and see for yourself."

Cursing softly to myself for having ever brought the subject up, I climbed up on one of her rickety kitchen chairs to reach the trapdoor, hoping the thing would bear my weight long enough to get me up and down again. Mary stood below me, her arms folded tightly across her chest.

"Watch out for the rat," she said as I reached up.

"What?" I looked down at her pinched face.

"There's a rat up there; I hear it at night moving around."

"Just when you need a cat . . ." I muttered, pressing the palm of my hand against the trapdoor to push against the magnetic lock and open it. The wood of the door felt unusually warm, particularly in contrast with the cold of Mary's house.

I pushed. The trapdoor swung open in a waft of humidity and I stared up into the blazing glare of heat-lamps. Pulling down the stepladder, I climbed up jutting my head up into the roof s.p.a.ce.

The room was heavy with heat and the scent of greenery. The whole length of the loft was lined with row upon row of cannabis plants, the dark green spikes of their leaves reaching towards the lights hung from the rafters.

Glancing up, I noticed that the lamp's cables ran down the length of the rafters and were patched into Mary's attic light socket. At once, I understood why her electric bill was so expensive.

I stepped up into the attic. Looking across I saw that Artie Moran had broken through the wall separating his attic from Mary Hanni-gan's in order to increase the s.p.a.ce available to him in which to cultivate his plants. He stood now on his own side, open-mouthed, pausing in the middle of stashing blocks of fifty-euro notes into a black bin bag.

He glanced around him, as if to gauge the likelihood of escape. The bag in his hands was clearly heavy and I knew that, to run, he would have to let it go. In the event, he could not.

As I approached him, I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the fifty he had given me for Mary Hannigan.

"You felt sorry for the old woman?"

Moran swallowed heavily, his body slumping slightly where he stood as I pulled out my phone and called for backup.

Over the course of the next five hours, we removed 200 plants, and over 50,000 euros from the attic in six black bin bags. This cache did not include the two blocks of fifties I had removed from the bag before my colleagues had arrived, which I had hidden in Mary Hannigan's kitchen.

A week later I stood in that same kitchen watching as the plumbers fitted the central heating. I had arranged for Mary to be booked into a hotel until the work was completed. The glazier approached me to announce that he'd finished installing the double-glazing.

He glanced around at the various workmen moving around the house, raising his voice to be heard above the cacophony of hammer blows and electric drilling.

"How the h.e.l.l does an old doll afford all this at her age?" he asked.

I looked at him levelly. "Drugs money," I said.

Had I not been wearing my Garda uniform, he might even have believed me.

ENOUGH OF THIS s.h.i.t ALREADY.

Tony Black.

SHOPPING IS, LIKE, my way of getting over Steve . . . until the meds kick in anyway.

Been to Wal-Mart buying stuff I don't need or want picked up my fourth pair of Ugg boots for Chrissakes got them under my arm as Brad Johnson squeezes beside me in the elevator to math cla.s.s, starts his s.h.i.t again.

"Been trappin'?" he says, leaning in close enough to let me know he'd sprung for a second chilli-dog at lunch.

"Excuse me."

"What Dad calls it when my mom comes back all bagged up like a fur trapper," a laugh on his last word, like, for no reason. This jock s.h.i.t has me weirded out, but I've got good cause.

The elevator jolts and Brad rocks forward on the heels of his Nike Airs, I get a feel of his semi and I'm thinking, whoa . . . that stuff about me putting out is such fiction already. But my heart's racing. Pounding and pounding because this is my first day back after . . . The Incident. Brad and I haven't even spoken about The Incident.

"This is my floor!" I say, edging away real fast. I'm sweating, s.h.i.t, this is too full on.

"Your floor, my floor . . . I don't mind one bit!"

That's not even funny. Six weeks past, at Trish Jacob's party, Steve caught Brad on top of me, doing stuff. I was way out of it, can't remember a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing, but Steve and me are so over now. And Brad, I just feel way too strange around him. Real strange.

I'm shaking as I turn to push the b.u.t.ton and he smiles at me, moves in close, all slimy-like. In the polished elevator door I see him eyeing my a.s.s, pursing his lips and flicking out his tongue like a snake or a lizard or something. It's all for his jock buddies, they high-five, and I want to hurl. No s.h.i.t, I want to throw chunks here and now.

Brad's hot hands grab my hips, pull me back. His semi feels more like a hard-on now. I can't move, I want to say something but I'm too choked, what a wimp-out!

"You remember this, Alana?" he says, smiling, laughing.

My heart goes from flat-out to stopped in a second. I feel chills all over me. But I remember nothing.

Ding! The elevator stops; feel a judder.

I shake off Brad's hands and run out.

I'm in such a rush I nearly drop my new Ugg boots.

"Hey, someone's been to the stores, let's see," says Louisa. She comes running over and takes my bag with the boots. "Oh my G.o.d, Alana, these are so awesome!"

I'm too p.i.s.sed to respond, my heart is, like, racing as I think of Brad and his buddies laughing at me. What the h.e.l.l were they saying?

"What the f.u.c.k is this?" cries out Louisa, she holds up a little white box I took from the pharmacy. I mean took, I never stole before, but I couldn't bring myself to buy it. I'm acting real strange since The Incident.

I s.n.a.t.c.h back the box, tuck it away. "It's . . . you know, a test." I whisper on the last word.

Louisa's eyes widen, she drops her voice lower than mine, mouths the shape of the word, "Pregnancy?"

I nod.

Louisa rolls her eyes, "But, you and Steve . . . I thought you never did it!" I can take hearing his name from Louisa, she's my friend, she makes me laugh, but I still don't like it.

"We never."

Louisa sticks her tongue in her cheek, rolls up her eyes again, "Oh."

I don't think she understands.

s.h.i.t, I don't think I do.

I sit through math but I don't think I'm learning a frickin' thing. My head is full of Steve and how I'd promised he'd be my first and the way his face looked when he said about catching me with Brad. He roared and cried and said I was like all the other dumb chicks jumping in the sack with an a.s.shole just because he gets his daddy's Porsche on weekends.

I cry, too, when I see the little white stick go blue. I cry and it hurts because I don't know why I'm crying. Is it because that's my life, like, over already? Or is it because I've done one more thing to hurt Steve? I don't know anything anymore.

"Alana, you dumb b.i.t.c.h," I say. I've been sitting in the girls' john for an hour; took me so long to build up the courage to pee on the little white stick but now I have the answer I wish I didn't. I wish I was never born, Christ, how did this ever happen?

I pull up my panties and take Mom's gun from the strap thing on my leg. Mom loves this little gun; she saw it in a movie once and Dad bought it for her, strap thing and all. She laughed and laughed that day. That was a long time ago. All the happy days seem a long time ago now. I look at the gun, it's small, says Beretta on the side but Mom calls it her Bobcat, like, why? I dunno. I don't know anything. I don't even want to think about anything.

I put the gun in my mouth and close my eyes but I can't pull the trigger. All I see is, like, my mom and dad and Grandpaw crying and crying and crying and the tears are just too much. I don't want to cause anymore tears. I didn't want to cause any tears, ever.

"Hey, Alana . . . how 'bout a replay?" shouts Brad to me.

Am I, like, underwater or something? My mind feels all fuggy, could be the tears but I feel changed. My thinking just doesn't work. Dr Morgan said I'd feel different when the medication kicked in, but I don't think this is what he meant.

"Are you talking to me?" I shout back.

Brad's jock buddies slap him on the back, there's white teeth lighting up the whole corridor as all the queen b.i.t.c.hes stop to stare and you could hear a f.u.c.kin' pin drop, like they always say.

"That night at Trish Jacob's place was, ehm, y'know . . ."

I sure as h.e.l.l don't know.

"Was what?"

More back slapping, one of the goofb.a.l.l.s gets so excited he drops a folder, papers swirl about when the door to the schoolyard opens and the breeze takes them.

Brad puts his hands out. "What, you don't remember?"

I shake my head. I'm just so glad Steve's moved to Lincoln High and can't see any of this.

"Well, how about I give you a re-run tonight?"

This is, like, tennis or something, eyes flitting up and down the hallway to catch what I'm gonna say next. I don't even know, only, I've said it before I realize.

"Okay, sure."

The silence breaks into uproar.

"Woop-woop-woop," carries down the hall and Brad's buddies try to lift him up. The noise brings out Mr Martinez from the history department and he smacks his hands together to get everyone to shut the h.e.l.l up.

Soon all I hear is the queen b.i.t.c.hes slipping past me and muttering, "s.l.u.t" over and over.

Like I give a f.u.c.k, now.

The black Porsche 911 is sat outside our front porch for, like, maybe a minute before Brad's. .h.i.tting the horn and yelling.

"Who is that?" asks Mom.

"No one," I say.

"Don't you lie to me, missy!" She goes to the window, pulls back the drapes, "What in the name . . . who do you know drives a car like that, Alana?"

"No one!" I'm pulling on my Ugg boots and then I'm running for the door when Mom starts to flap.

"Now, just you hold on a minute my girl . . . I know you've been a little out of sorts but remember what Dr Morgan said about taking things easy!"