Carmel Costello looked awful, but for once she didn’t care. This wasn’t about her – this was about her husband.

‘Assumpta, will you please shut up! If he hears you carrying on again he will be up here on top of us. Just ignore him.’

Assumpta knew that her mother was talking sense, but her father’s shouting was getting too much now. It had been going on for hours. ‘Just make him shut up, Mum, please make him stop! He’s giving me a headache.’

Carmel grabbed her daughter’s wrists tightly. The girl was getting hysterical, and she didn’t blame her. Nevertheless, this was something her daughter had brought on herself – had brought on them all with her behaviour. Carmel’s job was to emphasise to her daughter the seriousness of what was actually going on.

‘Listen to me, girl, and you better listen good. That man down there is not in his right mind. He is capable of really hurting us. You know that he cannot be talked to when he is like this. If I thought I could calm him down don’t you think I would have been down there hours ago? I’m the one person who has ever been allowed to disagree with him, and that’s only when he lets me. Right now, he is beyond reason and if you don’t shut the fuck up, he will be up here like an avenging angel and then we will really be in trouble.’

Assumpta was truly terrified now. Her father had been ranting without pause for hours on end, and it wasn’t going to let up any time soon.

‘Just keep quiet, let him get it out of his system, and hope to God that it’s sooner rather than later.’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Declan was tired out. It was the third time in twenty-four hours that Carmel had rung him to come and help with Patrick. If only Patrick would agree to go into hospital. But he was adamant that he was not going to do that again.

He was so fucking paranoid. He was convinced that everyone was plotting against him. It was like dealing with a six-foot toddler, who had no intention of doing anything other than exactly what they wanted.

‘Please, Patrick, will you just let me speak for a few minutes?’

Patrick was still manic. Declan could see the toll the lack of sleep was having on his brother. He had seen him like this before, but never this bad. He was all over the place, unable to relax for even a few minutes. It was pitiful to watch him.