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Outside, a lorry rumbled past on the road, birds began to call. The sun rose, the wind rustled the tops of the trees.
Quite suddenly she thought of her father lying in his hospital bed, the skin on his sunken face dry and thin as rice paper, clinging furiously to life.
She stepped forward to McBree, felt in his jacket pocket, fumbling past his cigarettes and a tissue to the car keys. Moving quickly, she picked up the spare sleeping bag, and skipped over to the petrol can. She lifted it carefully, trying not to get any on her hands or clothes, and gently spilled it on the floor around him, crouching as she worked her way around the body, circling it with the greasy fluid. The packet of coal left over from the barbecue was on the range and she stacked it under the table for kindling, throwing the firelighter bricks on top.
She stood and looked at the scene for anything out of place. The house was quiet; the calm morning filtered through the dirty windows, the smell of damp cut by the sharp tang of petrol. An animal hunger scratched at the lining of her stomach.
She stepped outside into the morning and lit a match, heart hammering in her chest as she reached into the kitchen. Her thumb left her index finger and the match dropped through space, flaming red and blue, spi
She was watching the firestarter bricks under the table burst into merry little lives of their own when a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention: flames tickled around McBree’s left hand as the square fingers unfurled, graceful, flowering open to the ceiling, appealing for mercy.
Horrified, Paddy lurched forward to the door. She grabbed the handle and slammed it shut.
THIRTY-SIX. SON
It happened again. The pasta shards were clinging to each other, stuck in inseparable lumps that the sauce couldn’t infiltrate. Pete saw her disappointment and looked into the pot. “I like it like that.”
“It’s not supposed to be sticky though. I’ve done it wrong again.”
“No, but I like it like that.”
He was trying to make her feel better and it wasn’t his job.
“It’ll taste lovely anyway,” she said, sounding more cheerful than she felt, “because you made it.”
“Yeah.” He nodded, climbing down from the kitchen chair. “I’m good at that.”
Across the kitchen Mary A
“Auntie Mary,” said Pete, sitting down next to her at the table, “you and me, we’ll grate the cheese.”
Paddy looked a warning over at him and he giggled. “I’m not to use the grater,” he explained, “in case I cut myself. You do it and I’ll order ye about.”
Mary A
“Naw, go ahead,” said Paddy. “We’ll be eating any minute.”
As she spoke she heard the key in the door and Pete leaped to his feet, bolting out to the hallway, and then he froze, standing framed in the doorway, staring at the front door.
“Hiya,” he said absently.
“Hiya.” The voice was deep and shy compared to Pete’s.
“Right, wee man?” Dub appeared, scooping Pete up and swinging him about a bit, dropping him to his feet and giving a mock stagger at the weight of him. “This is your cousin Callum.”
“Hiya,” said Pete again.
“Hiya.” Callum looked nervously around the hall until he spotted Paddy in the kitchen.
She blinked slowly and her smile widened. “All right, son?”
Callum smiled back. He was.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to everyone who has helped me finish this book: to Edith, Marie and Monica for all their help and support, to Odie and Ferg for style tips and keeping me up to date with regurg-chic, to the Consies for the usual and Louise, Amy and Sam. Most of all, thanks to Selina Walker, who’s a bit of a genius and whose talent and sense of the rhythm of a story always leave me slightly stu
Rachel, Henry and Reagan: thank you for my house.
Ellie, Janey, Liza R., Karen D., Jules, Alison K., Becci, Chris C., Be
And Stevo: I am being nice to your ornaments.
About The Author
Denise Mina is the author of The Dead Hour, Field of Blood, Deception, and the Garnethill trilogy, the first installment of which won the John Creasey Memorial Prize for best first crime novel. She has written a graphic novel, A Sickness in the Family, for DC Comics and a yearlong run of Hellblazer. She lives in Glasgow.