Tara held out her arms and Jude carefully transferred the sleeping boy. Tara held him closely against her chest and murmured softly; the expression on her face was so avidly tender that Jude had to turn away.

Once again, she made her way into the hall. Dermot was sitting on the stairs by himself, a beer bottle held loosely in one hand and his head against the wall.

“Bye,” said Jude. “Good luck with everything.”

He gazed at her, a stupid smile on his face.

“My fellow executor,” he said.

“I’m going home.”

“Going home,” he repeated, as if it was a foreign word, one he didn’t understand.

“Yeah. Take care, Dermot.”

Dermot sat up straighter and screwed a fist against his eyes.

“Did you love him?” he asked.

“Love Liam, you mean?”

“Yeah. Everyone else did. Did you?”

Jude was thoroughly sick of people asking her about her relationship to Liam and then disregarding her answer.

“I was eighteen,” she replied shortly. “I was in love in that moment. That was eleven years ago. Since that long-ago time, I did not see him and I did not love him.”

“The one that got away,” said Dermot, and gave a violent hiccup.

“Did you?”

“Love my brother? Yeah, Jude, I loved my brother. I used to trail after him like a little puppy. Sometimes he’d shoo me away but other times he’d let me hang out with him and his mates, do stuff.” He rubbed his eyes again. “He was so cool.”

“Did you stay close?”

Dermot took a swig of beer.

“He always meant more to me than I did to him, and he always meant more to Mum than I meant to her, and sometimes that made me feel like shit, but he was my brother. My only brother. What can I say? He’s dead. He’ll always be dead now. For the rest of my life I’ll have a dead brother.” Another swig of beer. “A murdered brother.”

“Not everyone loved him, though.”

“What?”

She sat on the stairs beside him, suddenly realizing how tired she was. “You said everyone loved him. Not everyone. Someone hated him enough to kill him.”

Music started up behind them, a bass note pulsing through the house.

“Isn’t love a bit like hate?” asked Dermot. “That’s what people say.”

Jude gave a small shiver. She needed to get away from this house.

A voice, Vin’s voice, boomed out from the conservatory. “Fill up your glasses, everyone; time for a toast.”

“We should go and drink to him,” said Dermot, standing up, his suit rumpled, swaying slightly on his feet. “Come on.”

And Jude followed him.

Forty-Three

Jude found herself in a crowd just outside the conservatory. She could hear Vin but she couldn’t see him.

“Has everyone got a drink?” he said. There was a murmured response. “Can you all hear me?”