I can promise you. Someone is going to get hurt.

Aidan turns up the radio to drown out the whispering threats in his mind.

The Sixties station is playing Elvis. He remembers the song although he can’t instantly place the title, but he knows it’s from that film – The Trouble With Girls.

He turns into Byron Street. Ryan and Tyler are messing around, kicking a can and shoving each other. Aidan wonders what they are laughing about. He clenches his jaw, it wouldn’t be about him, would it? He thought he and Tyler had come to an understanding? Tyler slips off the kerb and Aidan has to swerve to avoid him. The boys laugh again and momentarily Aidan is angry the boys are so happy and carefree while Kieron is lying at home, isolated.

Tyler jumps back onto the pavement, but the boys carry on jostling each other, unaware of the dangers of doing so. Tyler hasn’t notice it’s Aidan driving, not like in the pub car park, where his eyes met Aidan’s through his smeared windscreen.

Someone is going to get hurt.

He accelerates and again twists the volume dial, identifying the song now: ‘Clean Up Your Own Backyard’.

Last night, he had arrived home and stripped off his clothes. Shoved them roughly into the washing machine. Watching them spin round and round before standing in the shower and scrubbing at his skin, but he had still felt dirty.

Still feels dirty.

He wants to clean up his own backyard but he doesn’t know where to start.

Someone is going to get hurt.

Chapter Eighteen

Connor

Connor stalks away from the graveyard, hands thrust into pockets.

‘Wait!’ a voice calls from behind him.

He spins around to face the woman who is jogging towards him, holding out his scarf.

‘Thanks.’ He takes it from her and winds it back around his neck. She looks vaguely familiar. He’s probably seen her here. You get to know the regulars: the middle-aged lady in the straw hat, with the fat Jack Russell. The pensioner who, rain or shine, is always smart in a suit. The man only a few years older than Connor who wears an orange high-vis and carries a flask in one hand and a bunch of pink roses in the other.

‘Cold this morning.’ She yanks on her zip although it’s already done up as far as it will go, the neck of her red jumper barely visible. ‘I need a scarf like yours. Is it warm?’

‘Yeah. Suppose.’ Connor is uncomfortable with small talk. ‘Anyway, gotta go.’ He heads off but she falls into step beside him.

‘I’ll walk with you. I’m going to the cashpoint,’ she says.

He tries to ignore her. He relishes these precious few moments when it’s just him and his thoughts.

‘I’ve seen you before? At the cemetery?’ she asks.

He shrugs, hoping she’ll go away.

She doesn’t.