Matty stared at the candle, ignoring the others. You were supposed to pray now. This candle is for Dad. Please make him appear. If he was dead, then at least his body needed to be found. Even if he floated up with a balloon-belly. If he wasn’t going to walk back through the door.

On the steps outside, Mamma was talking to Father James, who held her hand between both of his. She always dressed like she was going to a posh party and not just church. Today she wore one of her black, shiny dresses and her thin caramel-coloured overcoat.

Father James’s voice was gentle and furry. ‘You know that you can come and chat to me anytime,’ he said. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ she said.

Father James took her other hand and clasped it with the one he was already holding.

Her calm voice did not last long. Matty could feel the tension in her, winding up like she was a Jack-in-the-box as they walked back along Hoop Lane. ‘Why are you so scruffy all the time?’ she said, suddenly.

‘It’s the holidays.’ Not more than a mumble.

‘What?’ She didn’t wait for it to be repeated. ‘You would not wear this in Italy. You are making me look like a terrible mother.’

You are right now, Matty thought. She used to sit at the kitchen table, helping with homework. Would get Matty to crack the eggs and mix the batter of whatever she was baking – chocolate ring cake, cheesecake – and hand over the wooden spoon to be licked clean. When had this stopped? It hadn’t just been in the last few weeks. A year, or more, at least. Since football, and skateboarding and boxing. Hissing to Dad and stopping when Matty entered the room.

Normally there’d be a roast dinner after church. It would take Mamma half the afternoon, and Matty would eat peanuts to fill the hole until she called to have the kitchen table set.

Not today. Mamma let her handbag fall in the hallway and went and sat in the living room. Drew the curtains. TV.

Matty took two pounds from her purse and shut the door quietly on the way out.

Chapter 4

‘Half a cunt,’ said Nicks, snickering, before wiping a trail of watery snot that dangled from his nose.

Nicks the Weird.

Matty had been explaining about Edward the Confessor and Aethelred and Harthacnut, who was the Viking king before that. Nicks’ swearing was strange, off-kilter. Dad would occasionally slip in a feckin’ or a bastard or a wee shite, especially when talking about any Barnet opposition. Nicks said shitwank and twat-hell. Bastarding blood-fuck. Now he had a new one. Matty had never heard that word spoken out loud.

He was weird. Posh, silver spoon, end of his nose. He’d looked at the skateboard blankly. ‘What is that?’