Cynthia knew that she had to save this situation from getting out of hand, so she hid her true feelings and forced a smile on to her lovely face. ‘Well, not a lot I can do. You’ll be pleased to hear he’s going to see a shrink on Tuesday, the school’s insisting on it.’

Jonny felt the relief as a physical thing. Cynthia had to understand that her problems were not his problems, even though at times like this he felt he had to try and talk some sense into her. It wasn’t easy reasoning with Cynthia. She had a knack of sounding right all the time – he assumed that was because she believed with all her heart that she was right all the time.

‘Well then, darling, how about a drink?’

Cynthia smiled her assent, but the magic had gone out of the night and they both knew it. James Junior’s so-called escapade was having far-reaching repercussions, and both suspected that the shrink would not be the end of it.

Chapter Forty-Six

Celeste was worried, but then that was nothing new. She was permanently worried these days. Since the night of Kevin Bryant’s death she had never been the same. Every time she closed her eyes she saw his face, every time she opened her eyes she saw his face. And it was a horrible face, twisted up in anger and agony. Over the years he had grown in size, until now, all these years later, he was like some kind of giant in her mind.

She crept around her house, her lovely big house that should have made her happy, half-expecting his ghost to be behind her, expecting at any moment a tap on her shoulder and his decaying, rotten hand to touch her.

She poured herself another glass of vodka and downed it in one gulp. Alcohol was the only thing that stopped her from hearing the whispers and the noises that she was convinced came from the grave, the grave of Kevin Bryant. A constant whispering sound, it was reminiscent of when she had been a kid on a school trip to St Paul’s Cathedral, and they had dutifully listened to the teacher in the Whispering Gallery, hearing the words travel around the structure, and all pretending to marvel at such a device in such an old building. She had not liked it in there with dead people everywhere you walked. So what if they were poets? They were still fucking dead and she was sure they would have much rather been buried in peace – somewhere a crowd of bored school kids wouldn’t be taking the piss out of their names, and sniggering about their lives.