‘Steven Golding was one of the first jobs that your brother ever gave to me. Well not him, but his father. His father was Daniel Golding. Ringing any bells now, is it?’

Declan nodded; it had all just slipped into place. ‘That was you? Fucking hell. I knew Patrick had something to do with it, but you’d only just come onboard. I never thought you’d be involved.’

Michael nodded. ‘Patrick told me to go to an address in South London and burn the house down. It was about a debt he was owed. He said that if the house was torched, the insurance would pay out and everything would be hunky-dory. I did what he asked of me. I never knew there was anyone in there – I had been told it was an empty property. But, as I found out afterwards, it wasn’t empty. Daniel Golding, his wife, and his two young daughters were in there. Steven survived because he was staying the night at a friend’s. I only realised later that Patrick had known all along that the house wasn’t empty – he had planned for it to go down that way.’

Declan Costello was looking at Michael as if he was a stranger, as if he was someone who had gate-crashed his way into his home.

‘I never knew. I never even dreamt that it might have anything to do with you. Everyone was up in arms about it – those girls were only twelve and fourteen years old. And it was you? You who poured the petrol through the letter box and burned them to death in their beds?’

Declan was outraged, absolutely disgusted. He was remembering the shock waves the deaths had sent through their community. Daniel Golding had owed money to everyone – like any compulsive gambler he had no real care about borrowing from all and sundry; he believed he could win anything he borrowed back. But no one he owed money to would have taken it out on his family, that just wasn’t done. Daniel deserved whatever he might get, but his kids and wife were sacrosanct.

Michael Flynn grabbed hold of Declan’s shirt front, dragging him roughly towards him and, looking into his face, Michael said furiously, ‘I did what your fucking brother told me to do! I thought the house was fucking empty. Patrick had assured me of that. Afterwards, do you know what he said? He said, “Typical fucking Danny Golding. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time.”’