The Lies of Sleeping Dogs
by David Gardiner
Through the little rivulets of water running off his umbrella, Liam Norris watched them lower his father's coffin into the damp Donegal earth. As the priest's muffled blessing came to an end, the pall-bearers, unhitching the ropes from the now invisible handles with just a fraction too much haste, started back up the hill towards the church, followed by the priest with his own large black umbrella, and the two rain-soaked altar-boys who hurried ahead with little pretense of reverence. The mourners, a group of seven or eight rather shabbily-dressed men of his father's generation, ambled over to Liam and Francie and solemnly shook Liam's hand one by one, looking him up and down curiously as they did so, telling him that they were "sorry for his t
