‘Guv,’ he says, ignoring McAvoy and peering across to Pharaoh. He shakes his head. Swallows, and it seems to pain him. ‘Horror show, guv. Fucking horror show …’

Pharaoh is out of the car in an instant. Becomes the force of nature that at once terrifies and inspires her team. Within moments she is at Grover’s side, a warm hand on his back, rubbing his shoulders like a drunken teenager as he rests his weight on the bonnet of the car. She tells him that it’s OK – that he’s had a shock, to get himself together and do his best …

McAvoy hears him through the open window. Hears the sheer bloody ugliness of what the poor sod has witnessed. Feels the hairs rise on his arms as memories rise.

No, he tells himself, again. He’s gone. He’s dead. They put him in the ground …

On his cheek, the scar begins to ache.

FIVE

Twelve years ago
Kingsway Flats, Scunthorpe

Eva-Jayne Puck, sparkle-eyed and jolly, bumping off the doorframe as she bumbles, moth-like, into the poky little living room.

‘That was your daddy,’ she says, grinning madly, as she rubs her forearm with plump, gaudily ornamented hands.

‘What was?’

‘On the phone, I mean. Bad line, but he’s sorting it. Sorting it out.’

The girl on the sofa picks up the TV remote control and mimes blowing her brains out. Manages a decent sound effect too: the spatter of blood hitting woodchip; brains sliding down voile.

‘Oh. That’s all right, then,’ she says, wiping her mouth. ‘Send him a fruit basket, shall we?’

Eva-Jayne sticks her finger in her ear. Wiggles it; bracelets clanking, rings catching the light. ‘Sorry, Ro? You got my bad ear. Anyway, he sends his love.’

‘Did he? Big of him. Send it back.’

She plonks herself down. The sofa squeaks in protest. Ro, inadequate as a counterweight, bounces up and into a sitting position. ‘Doinggg,’ she mutters, flicking her hair behind her ears.

‘Don’t be like that, Roisin,’ says Eva-Jayne, placing bare, chubby little feet in the girl’s lap and making a little whining sound that suggests her aching trotters may benefit from affection. ‘He didn’t start this fight. What did you want him to do – just roll over and take it?’

Roisin picks up her aunt’s foot, big toe pinched between forefinger and thumb. Deposits it back on the sofa as if dropping a dead pigeon into a pedal-bin. Gives Eva-Jayne her full attention. ‘It would have been better than this, wouldn’t it? Hiding out, scattered to the four fecking winds, stuck waiting to be told that everything’s OK again – that Daddy and the boys have sorted it all out, like it’s the nineteenth fecking century and I’m some helpless fecking female, the bollocks …’

‘Roisin, you shouldn’t talk about him like that. You’re his princess. You’re his wee darling.’

‘I’m not anybody’s princess. I’m nobody’s wee darling. I’m nearly eighteen, for God’s sake. None of this is anything to do with me!’