The Sin Eater by Sarah Rayne Read Free Book Online Page B

need ever know what happened,’ said Declan.
    â€˜But what if there’s a child? There might be. Because,’ said Romilly with a display of knowledge that was as embarrassing to the two boys as it was unexpected, ‘he didn’t stop doing it to me before he . . . you know, the part that makes a baby.’
    â€˜Oh, Jesus,’ said Colm, and Romilly, with unprecedented sharpness, said:
    â€˜I wish you wouldn’t blaspheme so much, Colm. It’s a sin to blaspheme.’
    â€˜It’s a sin to rape innocent girls,’ said Colm. ‘That’s enough to make the saints blaspheme.’
    â€˜And it’s no use saying no one need know,’ said Romilly. ‘
He
knows. I’ll never be able to look him in the eye after today.’
    â€˜You don’t need to look him in the eye. You don’t need ever to see him,’ said Declan.
    â€˜You can’t run away,’ said Colm. ‘Where would you go? What about money?’
    â€˜I’d go to England,’ said Romilly. ‘And I can do it, because Nicholas Sheehan gave me some presents. Not money because he doesn’t have money. But he has jewelled cups and silver platters and things like that.’ It came out defiantly. ‘He gave me some. He said I could sell them for a lot of money, and that I was a good and pretty girl and I deserved to have a reward.’
    Colm, his eyes furious, said, ‘I won’t let you go.’
    â€˜You can’t stop me. No one will miss me – I’m supposed to move on to the next lot of family next week anyhow. They’ll just think I’ve gone early, and they won’t bother to find out. I dare say they’ll be glad I’ve gone, because I don’t really fit anywhere, do I?’
    â€˜Yes, but you can’t just go, Rom—’
    â€˜I can. I’ll leave a note saying that’s what I’ve done,’ said Romilly. ‘And I’ll go on Sunday when everyone’s at Mass.’
    â€˜I’m not letting her go,’ said Colm, after they had walked with Romilly to her house and made sure she had gone inside primed with a story about tumbling down on the cliff path to account for her tear-stained face and general dishevelment.
    â€˜How will you stop her?’
    â€˜I’ll confront bloody Nick Sheehan, the old villain,’ said Colm, his eyes lighting up. ‘That’s what I’ll do. I’ll force him to leave Kilglenn for good. Then Romilly can stay.’
    â€˜How would you force him to leave?’ said Declan.
    â€˜I’ll say if he doesn’t go, I’ll bring Father O’Brian and the entire village out to the watchtower to throw him out,’ said Colm, his eyes glowing with angry fervour. ‘Like when they used to march a harlot out of the town with the rough music playing.’
    The word ‘harlot’ was not often used nowadays and nobody had heard rough music played in Kilglenn for at least fifty years. Fintan, when the poteen got to him, sometimes spun a tale of how, as a boy, he had helped run a painted Jezebel out of Kilglenn, and described how the banging of saucepans and tinkers’ pots had been as satisfying a sound as Gabriel blowing his trumpet on Judgement Day. Everyone enjoyed this story, although most people felt that for Fintan to berate painted Jezebels was a clear case of poacher turned gamekeeper, for the old rascal had broken just about every commandment during his life, with particular attention to the seventh.
    â€˜And I tell you what,’ went on Colm, ‘if Sheehan wasn’t defrocked and excommunicated all those years ago, then he would be now if the truth got out. But,’ he said, ‘I’d rather put him to rout myself.’
    â€˜You’re going up to the watchtower to confront him?’
    â€˜I am.’
    â€˜Then,’ said Declan, ‘I’m coming with you.’
    They went the next morning, which was Saturday and