‘Tony?’

He realised he’d lost track of the discussion at the table. Barr stared across at him, apparently shocked at his vacancy.

‘Sorry,’ he managed. ‘I was daydreaming. What are we talking about?’

Barr cleared his throat. ‘We can stop for a bite to eat along the way, or would you rather eat now on the boat?’

‘I’m easy,’ Duggan said. ‘Best eat here and get a move on, make the most of the daylight.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ Tony said.

Behind Duggan’s head, he saw Karen approach the table again, a glass of cola in her hands. She caught his stare and smiled briefly, a curt acknowledgement, then looked down at the glass, as if to ensure it did not spill its contents as she walked. When she reached the table, she sat at the head rather than the free seat next to Tony, with Duggan and Barr opposite him.

‘We’re just discussing the plans,’ Barr said. ‘We’re going to head straight to the forest; there’s a car park now on the same side I was told you went in from.’

‘Has it changed much?’ Karen asked. ‘I’ve not been back.’

‘They put a motorway near it about twenty years ago and the old road went out of use. Plus part of it was destroyed in a storm a few years back, apparently, and they’ve replanted it. But that’s a section on the east side of the woods, so it shouldn’t affect us too much.’

‘We might never find it,’ Duggan muttered. ‘This is a fucking joke. A waste of time.’

‘Uncle Sean says it would help a lot; give the family some closure.’

‘Surely that defeats the point of burying him there to begin with,’ Duggan hissed. ‘That was part of the punishment.’

‘For him,’ Karen said, sipping at her drink. ‘The family don’t deserve to be punished for something he did. Not now.’

‘You’ve gone soft, I see,’ Duggan said.

Karen shrugged. ‘I was never as hard as you, Hugh. But I’ve a different perspective now. Stopping someone burying their own child is… Well, it’s barbaric.’

‘War’s barbaric,’ Duggan muttered.

‘The war’s over,’ Tony offered.

‘For you anyway,’ Duggan said. ‘And it never fucking started for you, son, so you can keep your mouth shut about any of this.’

The last comment, aimed at Barr, seemed to physically hurt him. He had already been getting agitated, clearly sensing he’d lost control of the table. ‘I’m here at Uncle Sean’s request.’

‘If Uncle Sean had any balls, he’d be here himself,’ Duggan snapped. ‘Instead of sending a child, wasn’t even alive back then.’

‘It has nothing to do with him,’ Tony said, meaning Barr, though Duggan misunderstood.

‘Didn’t it?’ He glowered at Tony who wasn’t sure how to answer the question.

‘Either way, the family are looking and it’s the right thing to do,’ Karen said. She took the folded newspaper she’d been carrying when she came in and laid it in from of them. She’d folded it to the relevant article. ‘They give the paper out free in the foot-passenger lounge,’ she explained. ‘That’s why I saw it.’