I ask him if he ever tried to discipline Shannon. "No," he says. "What can you do? I never did lam into him or anything like that. Or maybe once when he was fifteen, but when he's eighteen or twenty what are ya gonna do?"

Did the trouble not start earlier? "No," he says. "The cops never showed up here but once or twice. 'Course he fought just about every kid on Thorburn Road at one time or another."

Mrs. Murrin interjects to speak up for her boy. "There were fights," she says, "but you know afterwards they'd be friends. Shan was never one for holding a grudge."

I gather there's no point asking what Mrs. Murrin thought of the murder charge against her favourite son, but I'm curious to hear Mr. Murrin's less-varnished appraisal. "If you told me he done just about anything, I could believe it," he says. "But not that. I never believed that."

The conversation is interrupted by a phone call. Shannon comes back excited. "Get your money, woman!" he calls out to Macdonald. "Tom's giving us the trailer."

Since arriving in st. john's the two have been searching for a place to live. One of Murrin's Thorburn Road buddies has finally come up with an option that's affordable, a sixty-foot mobile home set on a bushy piece of land out past the city limits. The rent is $300 a month and Macdonald is paying it.

They have a written agreement, Macdonald tells me on the way to the bank machine, in which Murrin formally acknowledges his debts to Macdonald and agrees to repay her if and when he wins a settlement to compensate him for the five years he spent in jail. But for the moment he's not working, except for occasional cash jobs fixing cars, and until the welfare cheque comes in, he's flat broke. Macdonald is supporting them both on a line of credit backed by her condo in Kitsilano.

From the outside, Tom's trailer turns out to be a wreck, with weeds growing everywhere and the rusted hulk of a truck parked on the lawn. The sight of it will make Murrin's niece observe that "we now official-ly have trailer trash in the family." Inside, however, it's not bad, despite the dirty shag carpet and the rips in the wallpaper left by a previous tenant.

Murrin, Macdonald, and I crack open beers and toast their new home. Then Murrin gets out the Smartie tube full of weed and rolls a celebratory joint. Talk, as it often does with Murrin, turns to the glory days of his life of crime. Getting a free hooker from the undercover guys in the early days of the Tran case. Fencing stolen silverware for a pellet gun as a young mug. The biggest bank job in the history of Newfoundland.

At times Murrin can have a great deal of charm. He's the lovable rogue who robs banks but is happy to pay the price. But as the shadows lengthen, and another joint gets rolled and smoked, Murrin's speech begins to slur, his eyes dull, and the talk turns to revenge.

"Tidsbury. The dumb fuck. Like to get him in a cage match, just the two of us. See who's left standing," he says. Then he launches into a tale of meeting Tidsbury at the trial. "I said, 'Good morning, shithead.' " Tidsbury, in his view, took away five years of his life and sent three thugs after him.

Another day, Murrin takes me for a drive to show me what he'd do with the money, should the government ever come through with a settlement. What he shows me is an old hay meadow fallen to ruin on a spot of land with a stunning view of Portugal Cove. Murrin wants to buy it. Then he wants to buy the land across from it. Then he wants to plant lots and lots of trees, and put up a fence. "I've had enough of people peering in on me. In the pen we used to get checked eight, ten times a day. He looks around at the view, looks back at me. "I ain't never going back, b'y, I'll tell you that. They'll have to kill me first."

This, for Murrin, is quite a change. Much of his life has been spent in prison. Never before has it offered the slightest deterrent to crime. Were this a novel the change might be attributed to Macdonald's influence - the love of a good woman and all that - but I suspect it's simply age. Murrin's a few months shy of fifty. Time has become a little more precious. Jail doesn't seem like so much fun anymore. The prospect of working for a living doesn't seem so absurd.

Not that Murrin's thinking of work. He's got his eye on a settlement. "I never done nothing," he says, making his point in short staccato sentences. "Spent five years in jail. Nearly got killed. And the cops are involved. That's gotta be worth something." Certainly his case is good enough for his lawyer to be working on a lawsuit, should the government not voluntarily come to the table. Once he gets a settlement, Murrin has plans for a dream home. "I'm gonna build a house, with a big den and a big-screen tv. I'll have lotsa booze and lotsa pot and a sign saying 'No women.' "

What role then for Macdonald? None, if you take Murrin's words at face value. But there's a teasing schoolboy tone to his voice that lets her know he's just asking for attention. Underneath his prison-yard manners, Murrin seems to have a real affection for Macdonald. And no wonder. She pays for his booze, and his pot, and his house. She laughs at his stories of hookers and brawls and burglaries. She sleeps with him. Most of all she offers him encouragement.

Kathy Macdonald is the first person outside his immediate family who, in more than five years, has actually believed in him. Photographs of Murrin just before his arrest show a chubby, smiling guy with curly hair - a bit like Sonny Bono. Murrin today is gaunt, hollow-cheeked where an iron bar smashed in his face, haunted-looking. Five years of being reviled as a child sex killer have left their mark. It's no wonder he'd reach for Macdonald. The question remains: What does she see in all this?

It's a question that comes to the fore as we drive home and Murrin starts talking sleeping arrangements for the trailer. "We'll get a queen," he says.

"A queen won't fit in there."

"Okay, we'll buy a double. Get it at Value Village. Or I know, we can buy one used in the paper." A bed from Value Village. For a woman approaching fifty. Clearly, adventure doesn't come without discomfort.

Two days later when we're in the dollar store shopping for a dustpan, I ask Macdonald how the adventure is going. "With everything that's happened I'm surprised I'm not a basket case," she laughs. And the Value Village bed? "At one point in my life I got to be very rich. I discovered it didn't mean much to me. My first garage sale I made $1,800 selling off all my silk blouses and stuff." She's clearly looking for something else.

So is that Murrin? "People underestimate Shannon," she says. "He's got a high i.q. He's self-educated, but he's very intelligent. He's an excellent writer." I've heard this before from Macdonald. I had never seen his writing, but it was hard to believe a great intellect would choose to hang out with the thugs and ex-cons who until recently formed Murrin's circle of friends.

But at his mother's place just before I depart, Murrin digs out an old pile of junk he's stashed away. Among the many papers there's a grade-seven report card, and a short story written in jail. The report card merely confirms my first impression. "Shannon is inattentive and unmotivated," it reads, giving him failing grades in nearly everything.

But the short story is something different. Written many years ago, "The Death of a King," as it's called, is about a wolf-pack leader driven from power, left with nothing but the love of his faithful mate Pa-tua. The spelling's a little off, but clean it up and strip away a few adjectives and it could pass for early Rudyard Kipling or Jack London. Maybe there are hidden depths to Murrin after all.

But is it enough? I suggest to Macdonald that their dreams may not be compatible. Murrin has had enough. He wants to retire, live away from the world. It's an old man's dream. What does she want?

Macdonald pauses. She's told me of her book plans. Of going on Oprah. I'm prepared for ambition. But what she comes out with truly floors me. "I'm curious by nature," she says. "I think I'd make a great talk-show host. Ideally, I'd like to host a show with Gillian [Guess] on the Canadian justice system. Call it 'Canadian Justice.' "

At last it's clear. What drives Macdonald is not love, or a crusade for justice, but fame. Another adventure. And one that almost certainly won't end with Macdonald and Murrin on the Rock, living happily ever after.