‘Did you see something?’ said Ferdy. ‘Did you see a car?’ ‘No, just,’ said Hanna. ‘I just need to check the old place.’ He looked over to her. ‘I don’t know. My father’s house. I just think we should.’ He got out of the car and followed her over to the black mass of the house. She shone the light of her phone on the door and he added the light of the big yellow torch, a useless tub of a thing, with a wide, weak beam. Hanna peered in at the window, that still had a half curtain of white net. She did not see anything inside. The door showed all its colours in flakes and blisters, bright red, a blue that was bright and profound – azure or gentian blue – it reminded her so strongly of her Granny Madigan she went to touch it; and over all of these an ordinary green. ‘She might have gone in the back door,’ she said. ‘We should be looking for the car.’ The bottom of the door was rotted away and covered with boards of thin plywood. Hanna bent down and pulled one away and, ‘Hold your horses,’ he said, but she was already crawling through it, into the little porch, across lino that was multicoloured, like a scattering of sweets.
