‘Are you OK?’ Karen murmured.

‘Yeah,’ he managed. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you. To your dad.’

She looked up at him sleepily, her eyes red rimmed. ‘I’ve never told anyone, but I always thought that what he said – the man who killed Daddy, I mean – I think what he said was “I’m sorry.” And I never told anyone because, if I believed that, that that’s what he thought the minute he took my daddy from me, then I’d not be able to be as angry any more. And that’s all I’ve got to keep me going. My anger.’

Chapter Twenty

‘Are you still angry? About your dad?’ Tony asked. The breeze buffeted them as they stood, Karen’s jacket flapping against her legs, cracking with wind whipping. Beyond her, the Scottish coast was clearly visible now, the houses spotted along the crags.

‘No,’ she said.

‘Not even a little?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m just sad now, when I think of Daddy. I wish he’d met my husband, my children – his grandchildren. That’s what killing him deprived me of – those moments that I wanted to share with him. So I ache at his absence. But I’m not angry anymore. The guy who… shot him… he was a kid himself. I could see in his eyes, he was young. Whatever drove him to our house, whatever hatred, or bitterness, or maybe his own family tragedy, it had nothing to do with my daddy. He was a victim of something too.’

‘That’s very understanding of you,’ Tony shivered.

Karen smiled. ‘It’s practical. My anger wouldn’t change anything. Nor my hatred. The only person it would damage is me.’

‘I got angry for a bit after my son died,’ Tony said. ‘I got angry at God, at Ann, at the doctors for not being able to do more. But it didn’t help. Instead, sometimes, I’d imagine him alive. I’d try to imagine what he’d look like, what team he’d support, what sport he’d play, what music he’d like.’

‘It’s easier for me,’ Karen said. ‘I know those things about Daddy. When I hear a certain song, like when Frank Sinatra comes on the radio, I think of him, humming along to it in the car. Maybe in some parallel universe he’s still alive, still singing along to ‘These Foolish Things’. Maybe you have a son.’

‘I think I wasn’t meant to have a child,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t think I’d have been a very good father.’

‘You’d have been a great father.’

Tony smiled mildly at the compliment, even as he dismissed it with a shake of his head. ‘No.’

‘You were great with kids when we were… back when. You’d a real soft spot for them; you talked about them all the time, sure.’

‘Other people’s. I don’t think I’d have been a good role model for my own, somehow.’

‘You only think that. Before my first was born, I remember panicking one night, lying shaking in bed, thinking about how I was going to be responsible for this person and I could barely look after myself. I was shaking so hard it woke Seamy.’