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Shannon was drunk. Scuttered, George would say. Shit. She didn’t want to think how she was going to pay him back what she’d spent on his bank card. She’d waved Jess into a taxi outside Danny’s. She knew it’d cost another ten euro on George’s card to get home, so walking was her only option.

Buttoning up her teddy coat and snuggling into the warmth of the collar, she slung her bag over her shoulder and set off down the street. It was bloody freezing, and her skirt was way too short and her tights too thin to protect her legs from the sharp breeze. She looked over her shoulder at the taxi rank, but it was now empty. Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty in these heels, and she’d be home.

When she reached the bridge, she turned left heading for Cairnbeg, her terraced estate. Nearly there. Another five minutes. She wouldn’t have to pass the cinema complex where Laura’s body had been found. That was good. She couldn’t bear to think of her lying out in the cold all night, dead.

The lights of Cairnbeg beckoned. Almost home. But she had an unsettling feeling that someone was following her. Glancing over her shoulder, all she saw was the sparkle of the canal as it flowed slowly under the bridge. Keep walking. Don’t look back. She stumbled on her heels and put out a hand to the wall of a house to steady herself. Damn it, she was so drunk. George would throw a hissy fit. As she turned into the estate her laboured breathing eased a little.

Had she imagined she was being followed? Or had there really been someone skulking behind her in the dark, walking in her footsteps. She was now among the lights and houses and gardens. Still a shiver of terror rattled her to her core.

Nearly home.

She was safe.

Almost…

He was walking a good distance behind her. Then she looked back and he slid into a doorway before she saw him. Her pace remained steady. She wasn’t running. That was good. But she looked like the whore she was, in that fucking fluffy pink coat. All long legs and narrow sharp heels. A whore called Shannie. For God’s sake.

Keeping well back, out of sight of her nervous glances, he watched as she turned into the estate. His car was parked at the pub. How could he snatch her and get her back there? He’d made a mistake offering to buy them the drinks. That had spooked her. Still, he’d followed her and her friend into Danny’s. The bustling crowd there had helped him remain hidden. And when they’d left, he was able to follow unnoticed.

Now he hung back and watched and waited to see which house she entered. Then he’d decide what to do next.

Without turning on a light, Shannon sneaked the bank card back into her brother’s wallet where he’d left it on the kitchen table. She had one foot on the bottom step of the stairs when she heard him speak from somewhere in the depths of the house.

‘You are some bitch, Shannon Kenny.’

Through the open sitting room door, she saw her brother seated on an armchair in the semi-darkness. The floor lamp beside him burst into light as he put his foot on the switch.

‘What are you doing in the dark, George?’ She didn’t move.

‘What are you doing, more like?’

‘Heading up to bed. You okay?’ Still she did not move.

‘Had a nice time on my money?’

Shit. He knew. ‘I’ll pay you back. I’m sorry. I’m skint.’

‘Not find a fancy man to bail you out, then?’

‘Will you stop? Look, I’m wrecked. We can talk in the morning.’

He jumped out of the chair and in an instant was in the hall, grabbing her arm and pulling her off the step.

‘You promised you’d help with Davy. But then you disappear and I can’t work or get to the gym. Then you have the cheek to steal my bank card. You are some muppet.’

She exhaled with relief. He was mad, but not so mad that he couldn’t make her smile.

‘I’m sorry. How is Davy? Has the chickenpox eased?’

‘Like you care.’

‘He’s your kid, but I am concerned.’

He returned to the sitting room, where he flopped onto the armchair again.

She followed, though she really wanted to remove her make-up, fall into bed and sleep away the thought that someone might have walked home in her shadow.

‘Shannon, you need to get a decent job,’ he said. ‘You spend more than you make and then you spend mine. We have bills, utilities to pay. I’m sick of being the responsible one around here. You swan out to the pub and come back when you feel like it. Where were you last night? I was sure you were that girl they found dead at the cinema. Then you waltz in the next morning without a care in the world.’

‘Told you. I stayed with Karen. But listen, George, I think someone followed me home tonight. I had the weirdest feeling and?—’

‘Nothing to do with being drunk, was it?’

‘Will you stop? I had feck-all to drink.’

‘My online banking tells me different. Shannon, you have a problem. Did you buy drugs tonight? Was all the money I spent on your rehab a waste?’

‘You sound just like Mam used to.’

‘And look what you did to her .’ He jumped up. ‘I didn’t mean that, Shannon. I swear.’

‘But you thought about it enough that it was on the tip of your tongue.’

She edged back into the hall. She felt a lump in her chest. George was right. The strain of her habit had killed their mother. Well, cancer took her in the end, but what Shannon had done while on drugs had to be a cause of the stress she’d suffered. George often reminded her of it, before he became contrite.

‘I’m sorry, sis. Go to bed,’ he said. ‘I’ve to catch up on my work in the morning and I need you to care for Davy.’

She nodded. As she turned to climb the stairs, she thought she saw a shadow move outside, through the glass panel in the door. Must be the drink, she told herself, but in reality it cemented in her head the idea that she had been followed home.

Upstairs, she abandoned the idea of taking off her make-up. She just wanted to sleep.