With the cars and the guns and all the arrangements for Saturday sorted, Barry decided that they should all go off to the Top of the Hill to meet the rest of the gang and have a few scoops. He took down his dark green coat from the peg in the hallway, and while he was buttoning it up, he opened the door of the front living room with his elbow.

Megan was sitting curled up on the leatherette couch watching Dancing on Ice and she didn’t even turn to look at him.

‘I’m off out, girl. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I’ll be starving when I come back, do you hear me? Make sure you have that pot of colcannon soup bubbling up good and hot for me and plenty of soda bread buttered.’

‘I will, yeah,’ said Megan.

‘So what’s that supposed to mean? You will or you won’t?’

‘It means I will.’

‘Then fecking look at me when you say it.’

Megan turned and stared at him. Her eyes were circled with black bruises and she still had a bulky white gauze pad stuck to the bridge of her nose, which gave her the appearance of a curious swan.

‘It’ll be ready for you so. I wouldn’t want another belt.’

Barry fixed her with a hostile stare, as if he were minded to come into the living room and give her a slap, but then, without another word, he turned and left. Gavin and Feargal followed close behind him. Gavin glanced at Megan as he passed the open door, shaking his head as if to say, Why does he do it to you, and why do you fecking let him?

As soon as the front door had slammed behind them, Megan turned down the volume on the television, lifted the seat cushion and picked up her phone. She jabbed out Muireann’s number and waited while it rang. She knew that Muireann may not be able to answer straight away, especially if she was in The Weavers with Thomas O’Flynn and some of his scummers, and maybe she may not be aware at first that she was being called. Her phone was set only to vibrate, and not to ring, like Megan’s own.

Megan was almost ready to give up when Muireann said, ‘It’s okay. I can talk now. I’m in the toilets.’

‘Are you at The Weavers? There’s a party there on Saturday afternoon.’

‘That’s right. It’s Maddie O’Flynn’s twenty-first. There’s at least thirty coming, maybe more.’

‘You need to give it a miss, Muireann, I’m warning you.’

‘Why? What’s going to happen?’