Going to her sister, Cynthia slapped her as hard as she could across the face. Seeing that the girl was calmer, she walked her slowly up the stairs back into the kitchen. Then, the gun still in her hands, she closed the now-open front door before pouring both herself and her sister large brandies. She gulped hers and made sure her sister did the same. Next, she walked out into the hallway and, picking up the telephone, she rang around until she located James, only telling him that she was at Jonny’s house and that Celeste needed her husband as soon as physically possible.

Then she sat at the kitchen table and waited, all the time talking calmly to her little sister and assuring her that everything was going to be all right. She wasn’t sure she believed any of that herself, but she knew it was all she could do until the men arrived.

Chapter Thirty-Three

‘I still can’t believe it.’ That much was evident in Jack Callahan’s voice.

‘Your daughter shot Kevin Bryant in self-defence, and she saved our Celly’s life by all accounts.’ Mary Callahan’s voice choked up as she once more relived her daughter’s close escape from death. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Kevin had been going to take out Celeste to get back at Jonny P. A few of the more sceptical said he might have only used her as a hostage, but Mary strongly suspected his plan was always to wipe her baby out like a little boy would stamp on an ant. ‘Well, you better believe it, she’s the fucking hero of the hour by all accounts, and our Celly won’t have a word said against her.’

Jack Callahan could hear the fear in his wife’s voice and decided to keep his opinion to himself; she might be stunned by Cynthia’s actions but he wasn’t. She was like a bloke in a lot of respects, oh, not in her womanly body, but in her mind. There was something missing in his elder daughter, and he knew that, as hypocritical as it was, had she been a boy he would have been proud of her. Males could be like his Cynth and it would be seen as strength, in a woman it was seen as suspicious.

His daughter a murderer! Because that’s what she was. She had waited behind the cellar steps and done Bryant from behind, using her sister as bait. That was the action of a man, that was a cold-blooded reaction. If she had had a lump of pipe instead she would have hammered his head in, he was sure. That his daughter had knelt down and finished the fucker off, was so distasteful to him he felt a moment’s sickness in his belly. She was a fucking strange cove and no mistaking. ‘How does Jonny feel about all this?’ he asked curiously.