Why was I so insistent on having a family birthday party? Will briefly wonders. Of course this is how it was going to be. Silly to imagine his parents could even pretend to be the people they once were.

As a kid, it had always been the thought of the house burning down that scared the shit out of Will. But three years ago, without a single flame, a blaze ripped through the family home and destroyed everything. There’d been no warning, not for Will and Danny anyway. Surely, when a home becomes broken, there ought to be arguments and thrown china and stormings-out, so you know it’s coming. There were none of these things – just a decision by their dad that he no longer wanted to be married to their mum or living with his sons.

‘There’s nobody else involved,’ he told them many times. It may have eased his conscience to say it, but it made things no easier for Will – they’d been walked out on because their dad would rather be on his own than with them. He didn’t want them any more. And the worst thing about your folks parting company, Will has come to realize, is that they stop being Mum and Dad, and instead become people. In the case of Tori and Mike Parks, people he’s not especially keen on.

With Danny and their dad absent from the table, Nain checks behind her before speaking quietly to Will and his mum. ‘He’s been at it again,’ she hisses.

Will’s mum rolls her eyes. ‘Who, Mum?’

‘Spanish Joe.’

‘The nice young carer?’

‘Looks can be deceptive.’

‘What’s he been up to?’

Nain lowers her voice further. ‘Poisoning. Tried again. Thinks I’m stupid.’

‘Arsenic? Cyanide? What’s his, erm …’ She giggles at Will. ‘What’s his poison?’

‘You think I’m a silly old trout, don’t you?’

‘Never, Mum.’ She tops up her glass, foam erupting over the rim on to the table. ‘I just think you need to lay off the Agatha Christie novels.’

Nain tuts as Will’s mum staggers inside the house. ‘I’m not stupid,’ she says.

Will puts his hand on hers. It’s freezing cold, no meat between the jagged bones. ‘Try not to worry about it,’ he says.

Her face turns blank, the pink evening sky washing over her pale cheeks. As so often happens, her worry has passed, leaving no recollection of what was troubling her just a minute ago.

Danny brings some sausages to the table and retakes his place.

Nain’s expression hardens once again and she jerks upright in her seat, sending an empty champagne flute to the ground with her elbow. It smashes into pieces.

‘The library!’ she whines.

Danny instinctively turns his back and busies himself on his phone.

‘Oh, the library! Sad, sad day!’