Broken Harbour

by Tana French

Places are like people are like sharks: if they stop moving, they die. But everyone has one place that they like to think is never going to change.

Once, when a night bird’s squeal close outside the caravan window startled Dina awake, my mother quoted Shakespeare for her: Be not afraid; the isle is full of noises: sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

Over time, the ghosts of things that happened start to turn distant; once they’ve cut you a couple of million times, their edges blunt on your scar tissue, they wear thin. The ones that slice like razors forever are the ghosts of things that never got the chance to happen.

Whether it’s true or not. You have to believe that somewhere along the way, somehow, most people get what they deserve.” “Or . . . ?” “Or how do you get up in the morning? Believing in cause and effect isn’t a luxury. It’s an essential, like calcium, or iron: you can go without it for a while, but in the end you’ll start eating yourself up from inside.

think when you’re kids, you’re less . . . defined? Then you get older and you start deciding what kind of person you want to be, and it doesn’t always match up with what your friends are turning into.”