“Anyway. This magazine, I bought. You seen it before? It’s called ‘Love It, exclamation mark,’” Ben announced. This drew another distasteful look from the woman in the bed.

“Doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.”

“You say that now, but check out these headlines,” Ben said. He put on his reading glasses. “Now, keep in mind these are on the front cover of a magazine that’s called ‘Love It!’ That’s important,” he said, then he cleared his throat and began to read. “‘He dressed me up in his dead sister’s clothes for sex.’”

Moira blinked her eyes open. “He what?”

“He dressed her up in his dead sister’s clothes for sex. That’s all it says. I have no more information to give you than that at the present time. Not until we look inside,” Ben said. “But… Love It! ‘He dressed me up in his dead sister’s clothes for sex.’”

“Love It!” Moira said, getting in on the joke. “Is there more?”

“Oh, you’d better believe there’s more, lassie,” Ben said. “I’m working from the worst to the best here. We’re just getting started. Brace yourself. Are you braced?”

“I’m braced.”

“You don’t look like you’re—”

“Just get bloody on with it!”

“Right. OK. Here we go,” Ben said. He cleared his throat again. “Love It! Remember. Here we go. ‘They stole my son and drained his blood.’”

Moira let out a cackle at that. “Love It!”

Ben laughed, too, although he sounded much less like a fairytale witch when he did it. “Who in the name of the wee man thought that was an appropriate title for this sort of thing?” he wondered aloud. “I mean, there’s a wee story at the bottom here—‘Help! My husband’s poisoned me!’ Christ, woman, don’t write into a magazine about it, call a bloody ambulance!”

“She’ll have been dead before it saw print,” Moira remarked.

“There’s a lesson there for all of us,” Ben said. “Christ knows what it is, mind you.” He indicated the magazine with a nod. “Want me to carry on?”

Moira tutted. “Well, no,” she said, scowling. “But, I suppose, since you’re here…”

Ben got himself comfortable in the chair at the side of the bed. “Right, then,” he said, searching for the next headline. “Where were we?”

* * *

Sinead stared at her screen, her brow furrowed and her fingers pressed to her temples like she was attempting telekinesis. She’d read the same piece of text on the same document six or seven times now, and was still none the wiser as to what it actually said.

“You alright?”

The voice beside her snapped her back to the here and now. She felt the meaning of the sentence she’d been attempting to decipher slipping away again as she turned to find Hamza watching her in concern.

“What’s up?” he asked.