There was some laughter, and the eldest Kelly boy didn’t like that. He glared at his brothers. “Shut the fuck up.” Then he turned back to me. “So they let kids at The Dean get tattoos if they want, do they?” he said. And when I didn’t reply, he grinned. “Why do I get the feeling that Daftie’ll be in deep shit if they ever find out?”

“Why would they ever find out?”

“Someone might tell them.” Patrick Kelly smiled disingenuously.

“Like who?”

His smile vanished and he leaned his face into mine. “Like me.”

I stood my ground, flinching only from the stink of decaying teeth that he breathed in my face. “Only cowards tell tales.”

“Are you calling me a fucking coward?”

“I’m not calling you anything. Cowards reveal themselves by their own actions.”

The anger and humiliation of someone showing themselves to be smarter than him combined to make him brave. He stabbed my chest with his finger. “We’ll see who’s a fucking coward.” He nodded his head towards the road bridge that soared overhead, connecting the city to the western suburbs. Thomas Telford’s second-last, I would learn much later in life. “There’s a ledge runs along the outside of the bridge, just below the parapet. It’s about nine inches wide. Up there tonight. Midnight. You and me. We’ll see who can walk it.”

I glanced up at the bridge. Even from here I could see the snow crusted along the length of the ledge. “No way.”

“Scared, are you?”

“He’s a fucking coward,” said one of the younger brothers.

“I’m not stupid,” I said.

“Shame about your brother, then, eh? Guess they might even kick him out. Put him in a hostel. A load of shit like that on his arm. Guess you wouldn’t be too happy about being separated.”

It was a real possibility. I felt the net of inevitability closing around me. “And if I do it?”

“Elvis’ll be our secret. Unless, of course, you chicken out halfway. In which case I’ll tell.”

“And you’re going to do this walk, too?”

“Sure I am.”

“And what do I get out of that?”

“The pleasure of calling me a coward if I chicken out.”

“And if you don’t?”

“I get the pleasure of proving you wrong.”

“Don’t do it.” Catherine’s voice came from behind me, low and laden with warning.

“Shut up, slag!”

I felt Kelly’s spittle in my face and glanced towards Peter. I wasn’t sure if he understood the gravity of his situation, or the trouble he’d got me into by showing off like this. “I’ll come with you,” he said earnestly.

“See? Even Daftie’s got more balls than you.” Kelly was gloating now. He knew he had me cornered.