That’s the legacy of it all, I thought, the long wound that cuts across the given and the stolen days: the noted but uncelebrated birthdays, the full past and the empty future. For those like Titch’s mum, who are left behind, the skin never knits together in quite the same way again.

I took along some yellow flowers and a tall jar and a packet of Jammie Dodgers and I sat next to the grave and tore into the biscuits just like we used to. One biscuit for me, one for him, with his set down just next to the plant.

I ate mine slowly, crumbling it dry and sweet in my mouth and listening to the scraps of birdsong that laced the air. And I thought about the years that had passed and how everything had changed.

After a while, I got up and arranged the flowers in the jar and left them there for him like a patch of tethered sunlight. I left them there for him, and all the others.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to my agent Peter Straus for his wisdom and invaluable encouragement; my editor Nicholas Pearson, a beacon of reassurance; and all those who helped to bring this book into being, in particular Lottie Fyfe, Fran Fabriczki, Beth Humphries, Jordan Mulligan, Matt Clacher, Naomi Mantin, Matthew Turner and Jack Smyth. Thanks, too, to Rosemary Davidson, Nigel Farndale, Mark Law, Tristan Kendrick, Mark Jagasia, John Thornley, Andrea Tumelty, Karen McCartney and Sara McCartney for their generosity with time and advice; the memory of Ed Victor, whose belief in my writing first got this book started; and my beloved husband and patient listener Rajeev Syal.

My enduring gratitude also goes to those individuals from all communities in Northern Ireland who – during the bleakest days of the Troubles and beyond – refused to accept cruelty as our normality.

About the Author

Jenny McCartney grew up in Northern Ireland and lives in London, where she works as a writer and reviewer for a variety of national publications. The Ghost Factory is her first novel.

About the Publisher

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