The Searcher

Cal and his neighbor Mart Lavin joke about how Noreen, the woman who runs the local convenience store wants to set up Cal up with her sister Lena. Cal has not moved on from Donna leaving him, and he still wishes he could tell her things. They have a 25-year-old daughter named Alyssa.

Mart reports that the previous owner of Cal’s house was a woman called Marie O’Shea, who was widowed with children living abroad. Mart adds that Marie’s children delayed selling the place and held onto it because they thought it would appreciate. However, following the financial crash, they could not find a buyer. Mart reveals that his brother wanted to buy it, but Mart dissuaded him from it. He does not reveal why.

Cal is working outside, chiseling a piece of wood when he hears a sound. He figures out it is the child intruder and puts him to work on some sanding. The child turns out to be a scrawny but tough-looking 13-year-old named Trey. Cal warns Trey that the next time he wants to watch him, he must do it face to face. He goes to offer Trey a cookie, but when he returns, Trey is gone.

There are no signs of Trey, but Cal judges that being “a wild creature” Trey will “need some time to percolate an unexpected encounter” before deciding what he will do next (29).

Cal goes to the local pub Seán Óg’s with Mart and meets some other locals there. There he learns that something killed and disemboweled a sheep belonging to a man called Bobby. The killer is a mystery, and the men contemplate that it could be aliens. A 25-year-old called Donie McGrath starts on Mart, after Mart allegedly calls him a cheater. Donie is ready to start a fight when the owner Barty throws him out. Cal reckons that he has seen Donie before and is suspicious of him. He escorts Mart home.

Once home, Cal is restless and calls his daughter Alyssa. Alyssa works for a non-profit in Seattle, Washington, for at risk teenagers and has an annoyingly earnest boyfriend named Ben. Cal cannot resist asking Alyssa about Donna, and as usual, she refrains from talking about her mother. When Cal invites Alyssa to come to Ireland and visit, she makes excuses. Cal hangs up with “the same empty feeling” (45) that usually accompanies his phone calls to Alyssa, feeling himself grow increasingly distant from her.

Later, he hears a twig crack, and tells Trey aloud that he should go home. It is only a fox making the noise.

Trey returns to Cal and is comfortable enough to help sand his furniture and to reveal that he heard that Cal is a cop. Cal is shocked, as he thought he did a good job of concealing this fact. Trey further reveals that he heard that Cal shot someone and ran away to get away. Cal admits he did not. When Trey asks him why he retired at 48, Cal replies that he could not bear the turbulent moment in which Black people complained about police violence and all cops were mistaken for racist ones. When Trey asks whether Cal was a good cop, Cal replies that “I aimed to be a good one […] But everyone would say that” (49). He notices that Trey looks poor and uncared for and offers him lunch. Trey asks to come back the following day, admitting that he is 13 and has no intention of going to school.

Cal heads to the village to Noreen’s convenience store. Noreen is excited to introduce Cal to Lena, her widowed sister. Lena is direct, attractive, and equally conscious of her sister’s scheme to set her up with Cal. She fends off Noreen’s plea that Lena show him the pregnant dog on her farm. Lena reveals that she used to hang around with a girl called Sheila Reddy, who is poor, with an estranged husband and six wayward children, who are troublemakers. Noreen is judgmental, but Lena is earthily compassionate. Cal does not leave before buying a carton of milk for Trey’s next visit.

Trey returns to visit Cal regularly. He assumes that he is one of the Reddy children. Mart is scathing about the family, saying that Sheila came from a good family and had plans to train as a nurse, but changed when she met Johnny Reddy, who could not hold a job down. He judges the children to be wasters.

Cal waits for Trey to open up, half-fearing that he may be abused. They talk about their families—Cal has numerous half-siblings, while Trey is the third of six Reddy children. Trey eventually confesses that his 19-year-old brother Brendan has gone missing. He believes that Brendan was kidnapped. He says that the local police are useless and will not help him find his brother and that he wants Cal to take over the work. Cal patiently explains that he cannot investigate, as he is retired and unfamiliar with the system. Trey overturns the desk in a rage, reversing all his hard work. Cal is annoyed but feels sorry for Trey. He recalls that during the period of his employment he was a relentlessly determined cop and that this became a cause of tension with Donna.

Cal drives to the town of Kilcarrow to use the laundromat. He also visits the local police station, at first on the auspices of checking whether his firearm license has arrived. He then asks Garda Dennis O’Malley about Brendan Reddy’s disappearance last March. The policeman, who sounds dismissive as soon as he hears the Reddy family name, does not take Cal’s complaint seriously. He assumes that Brendan left in search of a bigger city, and that he will be back as soon as he tires of doing his own washing. When Cal leaves, he concurs with Trey that the police are useless.

Rather than stay at home and see whether Trey comes back, Cal decides to go fishing instead. He does not want Trey to come over and build up the false hope that Cal can help him. However, it is not a good fishing day and when Cal gives up, he runs into Lena who is walking her dog. Lena offers to show him her litter of puppies. On the walk there they talk, and Lena wants to make sure that Cal is not an urbanite with mistaken “notions about getting back to the land” (79). Since her husband Sean’s death from over-drinking and a heart attack, Lena has been glad to give up the farm and do the books for a horse stable. At Lena’s place, Cal considers purchasing the fattened-up runt of the litter and says he will get back to her about whether he can handle the responsibility.

Cal walks away cheerful, until he gets home and realizes someone has let the air out of his tires. Mart comes by to tell him that a 20-year-old man called Darragh Flaherty hanged himself. Cal expresses his remorse, remarking that 20 years of age is “when they do it”, meaning suicide (85).

Later, when Cal phones Alyssa, he finds that she sounds vague and breathless. While she insists that she is okay, Cal does not buy her excuses and sensing some emergency, calls Donna. Donna is extremely guarded on the telephone, insisting that she will not tell Cal anything about Alyssa that Alyssa will not say herself. He feels hurt by how quickly Donna has moved on from him, whereas he still feels stunned that his life with her is over.

Trey announces his return to Cal’s house by throwing eggs at his door. Cal realizes that Trey “isn’t attacking Cal; he’s demanding him” (93). He agrees to help Trey if Trey tells him the whole truth. Trey in turn insists that Cal share all his knowledge with him.

He proceeds to question Trey about his brother and any motives for his disappearance. Brendan Reddy wanted to study electrical engineering at college, but did not get the grades required. He got into trouble at school for being unable to sit still and channeled his energy into making motorbikes and blowing out explosives in fields. Brendan sometimes got into fights and went on drinking binges, but otherwise enjoyed stable mental health. He fought badly with his dad John, sometimes to protect other members of the family from him. When Trey tried to ring Brendan, his phone went straight through to voicemail. Cal thinks this could mean any number of possibilities, including suicide, changing phones, or kidnap.

Cal then makes Trey run through the day of the March 21 when he last saw Brendan. Trey recalls that Brendan was going out but did not say where he was headed. He cannot remember if Brendan said anything to him before he left.

Cal tells Trey that he should act like he does not know him if he pays a visit to his mother, Sheila. He also tells him that he will have to pretend that he needs electrical work done if he is to be making inquiries, as he can no longer rely on people seeing him as an ex-cop.

Trey asks whether he can keep coming to the house. Cal tells him that he can continue to work on the furniture. He advises Trey to snoop through Brendan’s room and look for objects that would suggest he was coming back.