Michael had just come through the back door of his house and, as he was taking his sheepskin coat off, he called out loudly, ‘Oh, Josephine, you’re not going to fucking believe this, darling. It’s so fucking mental.’

Sitting in her daughter’s kitchen, Lana Callahan was all ears; she knew a serious bit of gossip when she heard it. She shook a warning finger at her daughter, and Josephine smiled. She always told her mother everything eventually anyway.

Michael bounced into the kitchen, all dark good looks and natural confidence. That was his way. He always seemed to be happy with his surroundings; no matter what the situation might be, nothing ever seemed to faze him. He sounded shocked, though, about whatever he had heard. Lana suspected that this was one of the few times he had let his usual guard down.

The sight of his mother-in-law, however, sitting to attention at his kitchen table, stopped him in his tracks. She wasn’t his biggest fan, he knew that, but she was a woman who liked to know what was going on first-hand. And she was like the grave.

So, grinning nonchalantly, he said in a pseudo-dramatic voice, ‘This is something you might regret hearing, Lana, I’m warning you now.’

Lana laughed. She loved to hear the latest gossip, but she was more than capable of keeping it to herself; she knew the danger involved in repeating things she heard in this house, especially when it concerned people like the Costellos and their ilk.

Josephine opened the fridge and took out a can of lager and, as she opened it, she looked at her husband craftily, and said, ‘Come on then, Flynn, don’t keep us in suspense.’

Michael took the beer from her and, after taking a deep drink, he wiped his mouth carefully. Then he waited for his wife to sit back down at the kitchen table before he said seriously, ‘Assumpta Costello is pregnant. Patrick is going off his fucking nut.’

He waited for the reaction he expected, but it didn’t arrive. Instead, his wife and her mother didn’t act even remotely surprised at his news. He had expected them to have been agog, as shocked as he was at the news.

‘Has she named anyone yet, Michael?’ Josephine kept her voice as neutral as possible.

He shook his head, unsure now if this news was actually as secret as he had first believed. Patrick had not said a word to him personally about any of it, he had heard it from Declan. Now he had a good idea why Patrick was keeping this news so close to his chest. If his own wife and her mother were not shocked at the news of Assumpta being pregnant, that could only mean they knew something that he obviously didn’t.