If you polish those words differently – words like ‘owe’ and ‘things to say’ – it becomes a threat, but his voice was . . . humble. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. Everything I’d thought this encounter would be, it wasn’t. I was struggling to reconcile the man in front of me with the man I’d built in my head: one full of anger, pain and revenge. I thought it might have been a front for everyone else, and the mask could drop when we were alone, but it didn’t feel like a trick. Call it brotherhood. Call it blood. I’d brought a bag of cash in the hope that he’d hear me out. He’d brought a handshake and a smile and hoped the same.

I was nodding as quickly as Lucy was breathing. I managed to fish out ‘Yep’ from somewhere between my arse and my tongue.

That was when the driver’s-side door of the truck opened. This is the part most of you will have figured out when Michael emerged from the passenger seat.

‘That was quite a drive,’ Erin said, stretching. ‘How’s the coffee here?’

CHAPTER 13

Admittedly, this was not so big a revelation as to warrant a chapter break. We’d all known who was in the driver’s seat. Of course we had: Lucy had already arrived, and as if Katherine would leave something as important as picking Michael up to improvisation. It was not a surprise to see Erin, nor to see her with Michael.

Before you accuse me of dragging out the reveal of her exiting the truck, I’d suggest that Erin simply had an innate sense of suspense or, more likely, she hadn’t wanted to make Michael’s arrival even more awkward, so had hung back in the truck until he’d finished his royal line of greetings.

I’d found out about them six months after Michael went to prison. I think I was first, and then it trickled through the rest of the family. Though I’ve always pictured Lucy finding out at the same time as me: in her dressing gown, excitedly opening a large yellow envelope, knowing it was prison mail from the fact that it had been torn open, plundered and taped back up, just as my wife said to me over an otherwise uneventful breakfast that she was planning to spend more time with my brother Michael.

Okay, I did drag that out.

If you’re wondering about my choice of words, most of my breakfasts are uneventful; I have simply never found meals with that much milk involved to be dramatic. I have only had three eventful breakfasts in my life. You know about two of them. The other involves sperm: we have to get to know one another a bit better before we get to that.