But it was what Eva was clasping to her that caught Josh’s attention and made his breathing stall. She was holding a white dress, billowing and huge; it was spread out over her waist and legs like a vast white blanket. It glowed with pearls and glittered with crystals in the lamp light.

Josh felt the blood turn to ice in his veins as he looked down at Claire’s mother.

‘Is that . . . ?’ he started, then found his throat was too dry, he couldn’t get the words out.

‘Claire’s wedding dress,’ said Pally, nodding. ‘Eva kept it all this time, in here in its plastic wrapper. She said one day Claire would come back and she would want it.’ Pally’s tear-filled eyes met Josh’s then. ‘Eva kept the dress, in case. She wouldn’t let anyone touch it, not even when she was so ill this past six months or so. Claire would come back, she said. But Claire never did.’

‘Pally, I’m sorry.’ He had to tell the poor old cunt right now, that he’d seen Claire, that she was alive and well. But he couldn’t.

‘Your girl, your Shauna. She wanted Claire out of the way so she could get her hooks into you, isn’t that so? She wanted it, and she got it. You might ask yourself about that. Shauna was in real tight with Jeb Cleaver once, did you know that?’

‘No,’ he said. He felt a shiver clutch at his vitals. ‘I didn’t know that.’ He did, he knew it damned well, but he wasn’t going to discuss any of that shit with Pally. He thought of the other two Cleavers, Rowan and Ciaran, both of them dead at Shauna’s hand.

‘Think about it,’ said Pally, and unhooked the lamp and indicated that Josh should open the door.

Out in the fresh air, Josh stumbled down the steps in a nightmarish daze and watched as Pally followed.

Pally paused on the steps, blew out the lamp. Someone in the watching group – Josh thought it was Trace, Claire’s sister – moved. Close by, someone started playing a melodeon, a mournful sound in the still of the night.

‘You want me to do it, Dad?’ Trace asked.

Pally didn’t reply. There was a liquid glugging as Pally fiddled with the lamp on the top step, and the sharp chemical scent of paraffin hit Josh’s nostrils.

Jesus, he’s going to . . .

‘Goodbye, old girl,’ said Pally, and a match flared and then the long chiffon folds of the wedding dress erupted in flames.