‘So, what about you?’ Tony asked, the question directed at Duggan, but the man had turned from him and whether he hadn’t heard, or pretended not to, no answer was forthcoming. Tony looked out the window, prepared to let his refusal to answer slide. If he was dying, he wasn’t quite ready to deal with it yet. That was OK.

‘How much longer?’ Karen asked.

Barr’s shoulders dropped as he answered, and Tony realised the youth had been holding himself tensed since they left the service station. His relief at the innocuous nature of the question was clear. ‘About twenty minutes to the car park,’ Barr said. ‘We take the next exit, I think.’

‘We approached it from the other side,’ Duggan said. ‘Coming from Glasgow.’

‘It might have changed,’ Barr said, unnecessarily.

‘Some things won’t have done,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m guessing he’ll still be in the ground. Those that go in tend not to come back out.’

He glanced at Tony, who searched for the insult in the comment and struggled to find it. Did he mean himself? Ann? Tony?

Tony looked across at Karen who looked from Duggan to him and shook her head.

‘Your wife,’ she said softly enough that Duggan might not catch it. ‘I am sorry.’

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

‘I’m sorry,’ Karen said, the following morning. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

She’d arrived at his flat at 9.30am, just as he was getting ready to go into school. Despite being a Saturday morning, the school was holding an Open Day for prospective pupils and staff were expected to be there.

‘Well, it was hardly mine,’ Tony said. He stood in the living area, shirt and tie on, but stripped to his underwear while he pressed his trousers.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ Karen protested, moving towards him.

‘You didn’t even try phoning last night,’ Tony complained, as if this was the cause of greatest offense.

‘I was out of it. I don’t remember anything after the first half hour or so.’

‘You must have been putting the wine away something manic.’

‘I’d two glasses, max,’ she protested. ‘You have to believe me.’

Tony looked at her, her expression pained. Her face was freshly scrubbed, free of make-up, though her eyes looked bruised with the previous night’s mascara, which had not been fully removed.

‘How can I believe you? I saw the two of you lying on the bed. He had his trousers undone.’ After a pause, he articulated his greatest fear, one which had riven him to the core all through a sleepless night. ‘Did you fuck him?’

‘Fuck him?’

‘Would you prefer “making love”?’ Tony spat.

‘Do you really need to ask?’

‘Obviously I do.’

Karen looked at him a moment, searchingly. ‘No. I don’t think I fucked him.’

‘You don’t think? Who was he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You what?’ he turned from her, incredulous, angry.