My mother and Kathleen are huddled together at the bottom of the path. I walk towards them, fat flakes of snow falling at my feet. I see our neighbours, the people I grew up beside, stand out as a mark of respect. I’m touched they are here for us. For him. Especially after he turned his back on them as well as Mum and I when he left. He was too good to be seen around here after that. But still they come out of their houses and stand solemnly as his coffin is carried into the house.

I look to them, see them whisper between each other. Are they talking about us? It strikes me that maybe they aren’t standing out as a mark of respect after all, but more for a chance to get a good look. Are they trying to figure out who the guilty party is? How much do they know about it all?

They are staring and whispering and I am shaking more and more. I’ve not even dared to lift my head yet to see the coffin. The coffin that carries my father. The coffin that carries the man who broke my heart over and over and over again. It’s true that there is the finest of lines between love and hate.

Slowly, blinking against the falling snow, I lift my head and it is there. This wooden box. Not much for an entire life. Not much for a man who seemed larger than life in so many ways. His body is inside. I try not to think about the fact that his heart has stopped beating, his lungs have stopped breathing. I try to think about how he has been carved up and put back together again.

And still the neighbours are whispering, and Alex and Heidi are clinging on to each other as they walk down the path. The sound of Kathleen crying, now more of a wail than a sob, pierces the air. I want to put my hands over my ears and run. I want someone to hold on to.

Then I see them, those police officers, DI Bradley and DC King, standing a respectful distance from us, but they are there all the same. Watching, no doubt. Reading for signs that might give away what happened. Do they think we’re all in it together? Do they think, as Father Brennan suggested, that we gave him a merciful death? That we’re all covering for each other?

Would I mark myself out as more of a suspect if I told them that I didn’t think he deserved a merciful death?

Or do they suspect that there are darker secrets among us that we’ve not told anyone yet?

I want to hurry him inside. Away from the spectacle. Not out of any respect for him, but because none of those people really give a ha’penny damn about him, about us, or about what has really gone on in our family.

I don’t cry, not until I see Stella. She is walking down the street and when I catch her gaze, she is mouthing that she is so sorry and she speeds up her step to get beside me. The warmth of her hand as she takes mine has the effect of opening the dam of emotions I’ve been doing my level best to keep locked up.