Dark eyes, so like his own, settled on Grady. ‘I’m causing you bother, eh? Sorry, mate. I know you’re disappointed in me.’ Mac looked away, jaw working.

‘It’s not like you murdered someone, but I think we have to face the fact that there are repercussions,’ Grady said carefully.

Mac nodded and sank half his beer in one draught.

‘So … Niall tells me Tonya’s gone to her sister’s,’ Grady said cautiously. ‘Trouble?’

Shoulders rising and falling on a big sigh, Mac nodded. ‘Do you know I wrote an apology to Laurel?’

Grady nodded. Over the other side of the room he could see Carola from The Angel marshalling a double row of people dressed in red tops and recognised the village singing group, the Middletones. They looked about to burst into song and there would probably be a collection after for the village hall or a Middledip kid who needed treatment. He suspected Carola may have been the inventor of crowdfunding.

‘Do you know how Laurel took it?’ Mac looked unsure if he actually wanted the answer. ‘Don’t suppose she said, “Wow, maybe he’s not so bad. I won’t glare daggers at him in future”?’

Grady shook his head. ‘She’d already refused to listen to your apology. You writing it down to force-feed it to her … If you’d asked me first, I would have advised against it.’ Nausea rolled over him. This was horrible, walking a tightrope between Mac and Laurel.

Mac frowned. ‘At school, apologising is seen as a good thing. It makes the individual face what they’ve done.’

‘It can also be perceived as allowing the perpetrator to feel better about themselves and their actions,’ Grady said carefully.

Mac looked green. ‘Like, cleaning my conscience so it’s nice and shiny? I didn’t mean it like that.’

Grady’s beer began to lose its appeal. ‘Do you have any kids that think they can do what they like so long as they say sorry nicely afterwards?’

‘Suppose so,’ Mac admitted reluctantly. Both knees were jiggling, now. He rubbed his hand over his mouth.

Across the pub, the Middletones burst into ‘Let it Snow’. A few people joined in the chorus and one of the darts players grumbled, ‘That lot put me off,’ when his dart missed the board. The excuse was greeted with a chorus of catcalls from the other players.