Robyn Hogan

Del decides to meet Sal Brenna

Bite the bullet.

Fidelma stood by the hotel room window, thinking. A shaft of moonlight lit the clerestory of San Nicola Pellegrino, Trani’s cathedral, opposite, throwing a dark, long shadow stretching from the nearest gargoyle, a leopard-like shape, down the pale, flushed cream stone walls towards the campanile. ‘Gargoyle’, from the water spouting French dragon, ‘Gargouille’ who lived in the Seine, ravaged Rouen, and fell to the sword of St. Romans in the 7th Century, she mused. At about the time Irish monk missionaries were converting Southern Italy to Christianity. The lowest section of the cathedral, the Crypt of San Leucio, with its solid marble columns and scraps of frescoes could well date from the same time.

Bite the bullet.

The first time she had heard the phrase she and her father, the father of her childhood, had been rabbiting. Or, rather, checking and emptying the traps and re-setting them on the mounds of the warrens. They trapped endlessly in the days before the poison trails would collect hundreds overnight; before myxomatosis was introduced and the rabbits died, thin, blind and sneezing. Del had been away at school by then and the devastation the disease had wrought on the rabbit colonies was patently obvious each holiday. Of the three methods of a species’ destruction, trapping had seemed the fairest. It took ingenuity, care, planning and knowledge on the part of the human; luck or a careless clue could alert the animal. Together they would case a warren, select the most used entrances, anchor the trap by its stake then clamp the jaws open. A square of newspaper, a tender sprinkling of soil to hold the plate just so, the remainder covered, the area swept clear of footprints and scent with the swish of a fresh wattle branch. They set them late afternoon, cleared them early morning. She carried a stout stick with which to club the live. ‘One quick, hard bang,’ Dave Dunne had instructed her, ‘the poor little blighters have had enough pain without us causing more.’

Why was she thinking of this now? The moonlight moved, lit the upper section of the bell tower, the connecting arch lost in the shadow; it seemed the tower stood alone.

Once, on the hillside where the curlews nested, they had come across a fox, snipping and snarling, its front paw firmly grasped in the cruel trap jaws. To catch a fox was most unusual. They are canny and sly and far too man-wise and Del, the young Del, was scared.

‘Bite the bullet,’ her father called from the other side of the warren, ‘hit her straight between the eyes.’

But Del was mesmerised. The fox, though distressed, was watching her, summing her up. Rabbits, with their dull, dark eyes, never looked into those of the assassin; she fancied herself reflected in the fox’s bright, defiant gaze.

‘You do it, please, Dad.’

‘No, Fidelma. You have helped set the traps; you must accept the results. And limit the anguish as quickly as you can. One big, hard blow, Sweetheart.’

‘She’s moving too much,’ she had wailed. She wished for a longer club though knew she would not be able to wield anything bigger.

‘Use your brains. Check her position, the arc of her movement — and be decisive.’

Why was she thinking of this now? She could feel again the clamminess of her hands on her trusty stick; the feeling her father was being unfair in making her do the deed. It was the fox that had been decisive. A last glare at Del before she dropped her snout, closed her strong jaws round her leg and, in one quick action, bit off her paw. Del felt again her astonishment as the animal limped rapidly away into the nearby wheat crop, leaving its paw a bloody, mangled mess in the trap.

‘Did she bite the bullet?’ she asked her father.

‘Sure did, Kiddo. Tricky bastards, foxes,’specially vixens.’

From time to time over the years one or other of them glimpsed the fox but Dave Dunne took no action against it; would call his dogs off any chase. ‘Something as plucky as that deserves a chance. Guess we’ll just cut her in for a share of the profits.’

Had he bitten the bullet that morning she was born? Had he decided, trapped as he was, he would make the best of it? Look after the ‘little blighter’ and teach her the strength to survive. Del fingered the pendant at her neck, the sliced amber with the flick of an insect in the corner.

As the moonlight slid away from the campanile, picking up the flagstones of the piazza, tracing a path towards the law courts then over the templar church the clock struck two. Suddenly, Del understood that her father had known she was different. Whether he had loved her mother to distraction, would accept, condone any of her actions, could not be resolved. But that he had brought up a daughter to understand the values of society, his society anyway, one of live and let live — even if wisdom suggested total compliance.

One of the few letters he had written her at University, just before his death, had mentioned the vixen. Dead, decayed, a victim of old age.

She would bite the bullet and make an appointment to see Sal Brenna tomorrow, come what may. Tonight, though, she must call Anne, maybe Davy too, though she had never been close to him. She smiled ruefully to herself; biting the bullet indeed.