Northern Spy

Back at home, Tessa is having a hard time managing Finn, who has been crying for hours. She thinks about how giving birth to him had been particularly arduous and how Marian had always taken an interest in that part of her life. When her mother returns, she relates what Eoin told her, which is what Tessa had suspected: The IRA was now employing a new tactic where they forced ordinary civilians to do their robberies for them. Tessa then asks whether her mother knew about Marian’s burner phone. Her mother had not, but she believes it was planted by a corrupt police officer. As they clean up their tea mugs, her mother announces that she had gone to the Dunlops, her employers for whom she’d worked as a cleaner for the past 14 years, to tell them about Marian’s disappearance. Though she insisted Marian wasn’t part of the IRA, it was implied that she would lose her job regardless.

At two in the morning, Tessa goes to get water from her kitchen. When she looks out her kitchen window, she sees a number of people outside with flashlights in the fields behind her home. Afraid for herself but mostly for Finn, she reasons that they won’t come for him if she meets them outside.