The Last Ferry

The gale that sealed Carraig Dubh off from the Donegal coast blew itself out by morning. It left slates in the street, seaweed as far as the chapel wall, and Éamonn Sharkey dead beneath the cliff at the old herring station. A wild night, a wet rock, a man fond of a glass. The island is ready to call it misadventure and bury its returned Yank decently. But Róise Gallagher was twenty-five years a nurse before she came home to keep the island's only shop, and the body tells her three things the sea cannot explain. The ground beneath him is dry. The tide never reached him. And dead men do not lie down twice. No boat can cross. There is no guard, no doctor, and no way off. Whoever killed Éamonn Sharkey is still on Carraig Dubh, standing in Róise's shop queue with everyone else. Between the credit book, the post office counter and a pot of strong tea, Róise begins to read her neighbours the way she once read charts, and finds that every loud motive on the island is hiding a quieter one. The truth is thirty years deep, and it has been waiting on the morning boat.