CILLDARGAN

Father Mac sized up the Tesco staff for traces of Kathleen's nosiness, but found few uniforms and little interest among them. The surly teenage girl with the long brown plait at the checkstand seemed outright bored by her surroundings, keen only for the calibre of gossip found in her celebrity magazine.

Frank almost delighted in her annoyance at his interruption: "Pardon me; do you carry baking chocolate?"

She scowled from behind thick cat-eye frames. "Don't know. What're you after making?"

"Brownies," he said, more cautiously.

She looked back at the page, turning it. "Packaged mixes are on aisle 12." She cracked her gum. "I think."

A genuine grin broke across his face. "Bless you, my child."

She rolled her eyes.

The Dooley family stood a moment outside the door to McLogan's in the midday sun.

Grainne seemed pleasantly surprised: "It's fancier than the old one," she said.

"Finally, one that really belongs to us!" said her father.

"We belong to it," his wife answered, her voice running on empty.

Dermot read over the sign. "Can we rename it for ourselves this time?"

"I see no reason why not," Paul replied. He gave Oonagh a grin. "That is, if this publican's really dead."

Oonagh forced herself to match the smile.

BALLYKISSANGEL

Brendan watched as Vincent buffed an already-shiny corner of the bar with a long-suffering tea towel.

"Teetotaling barman?" Avril said from her post nearby. "Ah, what is this, Cheers?"

He opened a mineral water. "Teetotaling customer? Who is this, Batman?"

"Touche."

"Suppose someone has to keep things moving with the Dooleys out of the picture," Brendan chimed in.

"Do what we can," said Avril. "Actually, I'm meeting the vet about The Cat."

Brendan lifted an eyebrow. "Siobhan?"

Avril shook her head. "The other."

This met with a scowl.

Vincent addressed it with a pint of Guinness and another bag of crisps.

The door opened. Brendan cut his gaze away in preparation to shun what's-his-name, but it was Niamh's voice he heard: "Did you reach her?"

The question was for Vincent, Brendan realised.

The curate polished a glass. "Didn't quite get a chance to nut out the details."

Niamh frowned. "Well, what happened? Where was she?"

"'She,' who?" Avril asked.

The door opened again, closing fast like Niamh's mouth. Brendan forgot not to look.

Avril took to her feet. "Dr. Sneddon," she put out her hand.

"'Benny,' if you like," he answered, shaking. "Good seeing you again."

Niamh glanced at Brendan in time to catch him pulling a face. She shot a warning look.

"I'd better go pack," she said, shifting quickly back to a cool smile.

MANCHESTER

Father Randall's chips and brown ale arrived much as they always had, skidding a couple centimetres to their destinations in front of him as the young barman turned his wrist and pulled down his cuff.

The parish priest gave a weary smile. "You don't have to hide your tattoos from me, Zach. How many times do I have to tell you?"

Zach gave a sheepish grin behind his black mop of hair. His amber eyes caught a light from outside. "That your date coming in?" he guessed.

Miles turned around to see Father Clifford, wearing a suit that looked slept-in, and a face that looked ready to state the obvious.

"Lager please," the curate muttered as he caught Zach's eye.

Sometimes Miles wished he could be blindsided by anything anymore. Surprise was impossible to feign at this hour, so he tried to set his face to deadpan. "What'd you want to talk about, Peter?"

Peter opened his mouth, putting a sip of drink in it instead of speaking.

"Father, I trust you know there are two paths to what I presume you're about to ask for."

Peter gulped down his first wave of lager. "The high road and the low."

"Indulge me as I beat the dead horse of specifics," Father Randall continued. "You can request laicisation, like so many others, and begin the waiting game in good standing, but on strict terms with the Church… Or, you can abandon the ministry knowing the consequences of suspension, and bask in the briskness of an efficient defrocking."

Zach made a show of looking elsewhere. It was meant to be proof he wasn't earwigging, which of course he was, but the gesture comforted Father Randall all the same.

Father Clifford might have fallen for it entirely, by the look on his face. He fixed his superior's eyes: "You're fine with this, then."

Miles took care not to nod, nor to shake his head. "I've simply learnt in my time I'll never stop the rain falling."

As if to mock him, a bit more sunlight came in on a cool breeze from outside. Zach got another look of alarm and tugged at his sleeve again. Father Randall turned and waved to another guest in the doorway - another black suit, another clerical collar, a bald head and thick round lenses magnifying large hazel eyes. Peter turned to look, and shock registered on his brow.

Father Randall's deadpan fell apart. "You remember Father Bailey, of course?"

"Father," Peter managed, seeming to struggle with the title.

"Noel, please," said the bald man.

Father Randall rolled his eyes and grinned. "How're you and missus?"

Zach dropped a shot glass. Father Randall munched on a chip. It had cooled down just enough. Again, everything seemed according to plan.

In spite of her permanent lapse from Catholic life, Assumpta still could find peace and beauty in churchyards, chapels, sacristies, and sanctuaries - especially when they were so mercifully empty as St. Luke's was today.

Securing Fionn's lead to a railing in the cloister walk, she allowed herself to drink in the beauty around her. She imagined the hands that designed and constructed every statue in the garden, each arch of the portico, the beams in the nave, the stained glass. Those hands were bones in the ground now, but their labour of love was not yet ruins. As the soles of her shoes washed against the tile mosaic of the floor, she imagined thousands of other feet doing the same - in faith and in doubt, micron by micron, polishing it smooth as a pane of glass.

This comforted her.

The bland hostility of a parish office, though, was another matter entirely. These were the places where corrupt men in dazzling robes made terrible choices, where human hands beat ploughshares into swords. She had once told Enda Sullivan that she wasn't an atheist. It wasn't untrue: her doubt did not hinge so much on the impossibility of a God, but on those who presumed to speak for Him.

Peter had been her best evidence that those representatives could do God's work.

Here was she, now, to turn his world upside down once more. Deep breath, now - she stepped inside.

A plump woman with a saucy grin sat at the front desk, engrossed in a pink paperback with purple-foil lettering on the front cover.

"Sorry?" said Assumpta. Getting no response, she read the nameplate on the desk: "Ms. Keddington?"

The secretary blushed and closed her book, marking it with a leaflet about marriage counselling. "Yes?"

"I'm...I'm looking for Father Clifford, please?"

The secretary reached for her book again. "He's gone off the property for a meeting with Father Randall, I'm afraid."

"False alarm," boomed a voice down the hallway. Assumpta turned to see Father Randall returning alone. "Father Clifford's in another meeting. We've discussed what we needed, for now."

He gave Assumpta a smile. She had no idea whether to trust it.