‘I don’t need to do fucking anything, Declan. I know that you will just talk shite to me again. I’m telling you what I’ve told you over and over: I am not going into a hospital. I don’t need to go into a hospital. What I need is to sort things out. What I need is to fucking finally remove the people who are standing in my way. Don’t you get it? I am surrounded by cunts, absolute cunts.’

Declan sighed. This was going to go on for a while. Carmel wanted to have him sectioned but she was too frightened to be the person to orchestrate that. She wanted Declan to do it and who could blame her?

He knew he should do it. It was in all their interests – especially Patrick’s – but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to put his brother away. It was never going to happen. But seeing him like this was almost as bad. All his life Patrick had been on the borderline, but he had always managed to eventually control himself. His strength of mind was awesome. Patrick had always been very unpredictable but, in the past, he had accepted that about himself. He had understood his own weaknesses and fought to bring them under some kind of control.

It was finding out about his daughters that had tipped him over the edge this time. Declan had heard the rumours about them – especially Assumpta. More than a few people had seen fit to put him wise about his nieces and their lifestyles. The men who had approached him had been sensible enough to know that if Patrick ever got wind of his daughters’ antics there would be hell to pay, and they had wanted Patrick to curb his girls before something like this happened. Declan had listened to the gossip, but he had no intention of telling his brother anything.

Carmel hadn’t connected with her girls once they had grown up. In Declan’s opinion, she was incapable of any real connection with anybody – she was too selfish, too self-absorbed. As long as the girls were well dressed, and their make-up was perfect, she didn’t care about anything else. It wasn’t that she didn’t love them in her own way, it was more down to Carmel’s inability to show interest in anyone other than herself. He had never liked her, but he had to admit she did do her best for Patrick. He believed that, in her own way, she loved him – at least as much as she was capable of loving anyone other than herself.

His brother was talking to himself and some of his mutterings were sending chills through Declan’s body.