‘You know, I think I might have put them up in the attic. Beside the Christmas decorations. I don’t suppose it will be long before we’re taking those down. Your woman at the top of her street will have her tree up come Friday. It’s the same every year. As soon as Halloween is done and dusted, she goes full North Pole. I wouldn’t want to be paying her electricity bill.’

His ma laughs and he laughs with her, but he’s already thinking he needs to get up into the attic and have a look around.

‘Where’s the pole for pulling down that ladder?’ he asks her.

‘For the attic? I think it’s in the built-in wardrobes in my room. You don’t really want to be climbing up there, do you?’

He’s already heading to her bedroom and retrieving the pole with the hook on the end that he will use to haul the folding ladder down from the roof space.

‘Would you not just sit and have a cup of tea with me?’ she asks, and he hesitates.

He loves his ma. He really does. He loves her more than anyone in this world. She’s the only woman who has ever treated him with respect and never thought worse of him when he stumbled and wound up in trouble again.

‘I will, Ma. As soon as I’ve had a look up here. Why don’t you ask Niall to have a cup of tea with you? He’s still about, isn’t he? Is he watching one of those Sunday morning politics shows and pretending to be some big brainbox?’

‘No, he’s not here. He’s worse than you. Off out this morning all wrapped up. Said he had to go and take that Ingrid Devlin somewhere. He wanted to show her something. I said why couldn’t the wee girl wait ’til that storm had passed, and he laughed at me. The cheek of him. You know what he said to me? “I’m not made of sugar, Ma. I won’t melt.” He looked all delighted with himself.

‘You don’t think there’s something going between the two of them, because I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean, what happened to poor Liam Doherty was bad enough – and wasn’t it off the back of that story she did for that paper she works for?’

Declan notices his ma’s tone has changed again. She is worried. She is twisting her hands.

‘Don’t be going up into that attic, son. Come and have a wee cup of tea with me. There’s treacle scone there. I know that’s your favourite.’