Josh was away fighting but he had promised he would be home on Christmas Eve. She still loved him, lived for him. But she knew it didn’t cut both ways. She hated him leaving her, but he didn’t seem to have any problem with it. Every time he went away on a bout or a promo tour of England or the USA with his team of boxers – who were mostly hard bastards from Linus Pole’s boxing booths – she tucked little notes into his bag to remind him that she was here, at home, waiting. I love you, said the notes. I need you. I want you. Not that he ever did anything in return. He didn’t even remember their anniversaries, the bastard, so over the years she’d stopped bothering with parties and gifts.

Now and then she wondered just when the rot had set in between her and Josh; and she always came up with the same answer: the night she shot Ciaran and Rowan Cleaver dead. After that, a void had opened up and she couldn’t bridge it. The lack of sex between her and her husband crucified her. When they were first together, Josh hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. But she still loved Josh to bits. Nothing could change that. And if protecting his kids – and him – meant jumping Jeb Cleaver’s stinking bones forever and a day, then she would continue to do it.

‘Place looks a picture,’ said Connor, coming downstairs and into the sitting room.

Connor was wearing tight jeans and a black leather bomber jacket over a plain white shirt. He flopped on to the sofa. Shauna smiled proudly at her beautiful adult son and felt a little cheerier. Connor himself was a real sight for sore eyes. He was big, nearly six and a half feet tall. He shared his father’s athletic stature and rugged good looks. His hair was thick, tinted blond from the summer’s sun, and his eyes were a clear, sharp grey – so like Josh’s – that seemed to see everything. His face had strength but also sensuality, and he had a calm, commanding presence.

No wonder all the girls fall at his feet, Shauna thought, and her smile dimmed a little. Damned girls with their fluttering eyelashes and their wheedling ways. Ever since he was sixteen, Connor had been dating some, dumping others. She’d never approved of a single one of them. Especially not his latest, an uppity little cow of a hairdresser called Kylie Patten. He’d brought Kylie home a couple of times and Shauna had given her the cold shoulder. He’d brought a couple of others too, before this one, and she’d seen them off, of course. Skanky little bitches. But this one – Kylie, Christ what a sickening name – seemed to be hanging around longer than the ones before, and that concerned her.