In the Forest

by Edna O'Brien

  A Weapon

  Chase

  A Letter

  A Will

  Fiesta

  In the Forest

  Wild Ponies

  Vigil

  Suspicion

  Father John

  Shadows

  Searching

  Donnagh

  Houlihan’s Pier

  Capture

  Reckoning

  Interrogation

  Absolution

  A Plea

  Old Times

  Evil

  Bart Glynn

  Grief

  Bluebells

  Blood

  O’Kane

  Christmas

  Court

  Visiting Hour

  Heaven

  Aileen

  Grotto

  Scallywag

  Author’s Note

  Praise for In the Forest

  Also by Edna O’Brien

  A Note About the Author

  Copyright

  Picador

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  Copyright © 2002 by Edna O’Brien

  All rights reserved

  Originally published in 2002 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Great Britain Published in the United States in 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company, New York

  First Picador paperback edition, 2020

  The author is grateful for permission to quote from The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, Vol. 1: The Poems, Revised, edited by Richard J. Finneran (New York: Scribner, 1997). Used with the permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The translation of Bryan Merriman’s “Midnight Court” is by Frank O’Connor.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Houghton Mifflin hardcover edition as follows:

  O’Brien, Edna.

  In the forest / Edna O’Brien.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-618-19730-3

  1. Serial murderers—Fiction. 2. Murder victims—Fiction. 3. Psychopaths—Fiction. 4. Ireland Fiction. I. Title.

  pr6065.b7 i5 2002

  823′.914—dc21

  2001051883

  Picador Paperback ISBN: 978-0-374-53877-4

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.