'What's stopping you?' Deacon's eyes narrowed. 'You weren't so backward when Denning went mad.'
'That were different.'
'Meaning Denning didn't have a reason to attack Walt, but Barry had a damn good reason for attacking you? You're a fool, Terry. I warned you to behave while I was out. Frankly, if you're not prepared to treat Barry with respect, then you'd better leave now.'
'How do you know it weren't him started it?'
'It's the law of the jungle. Rabbits never attack weasels unless they're cornered. Plus, you're still alive, which you wouldn't be if Barry was a nutter.' He started to walk away. 'You've got two choices, sunshine,' he said over his shoulder. 'Apologize or go.'
'I ain't apologizing to no pervert. It's
Deacon turned round. 'You didn't learn a damn thing from Billy, did you?' he said wearily. 'He put his hand in the fire to teach you the dangers of uncontrollable anger, be it yours or anyone else's, but you were too stupid to understand the message. I think I'm wasting my time with you. just as he did. You'd better start packing.'
It was a subdued Terry who joined them in the kitchen ten minutes later. There was a revealing redness about his eyes, and his walk was less cocky than usual. Deacon, who was reworking his chart, glanced up briefly, expression neutral, then returned to what he was doing. Terry thrust his bony hand at Barry. 'Sorry, mate,' he said. 'I were well out of order. No hard feelings, eh?''
Barry, who had been sitting in an uncomfortable silence while Deacon ignored him, took the hand in surprise. 'I think-' he looked at the marks on Terry's neck-'well, it's I who should apologize.'
'Nah. Mike's right. It were me pushed you into it. You're braver than you think. You said you'd stand up, and you did. It were my fault.'
Barry looked as if he was about to agree with him until he caught Deacon's gaze on him and changed his mind. The only thing Deacon had said to him since he'd returned to the kitchen was: 'I don't care what he said to you, Barry, if you ever lift a hand against a child again, I'll take you apart at the seams.'
Now Deacon pointed to an empty chair as he pushed the chart to one side. 'Sit down,' he invited, listening to the distant sound of bells ringing out for midnight mass. 'Perhaps we should have gone to church,' he said, nodding towards the window. 'We always used to go to midnight mass when I was a child and it's the only time I can remember us functioning as a normal family.'
Terry, accepting this for what it was-a truce-perked up again. 'Did you go the night your dad shot himself?'
Deacon smiled slightly at Barry's horrified expression, but the horror was for Terry's insensitivity, he thought, and not his father's messy death. 'No. If we had, he wouldn't have done it. We stopped going to church when he and Ma stopped talking.'
'Billy said the family that prays together stays together.'
Deacon didn't reply because he didn't want to disillusion the boy. He often thought it was the accruing disappointment of the thousand prayers that went unanswered that had led his family to disintegrate.
'My father was an atheist,' said Barry apologetically, as if he, too, didn't want to disillusion the boy.
'What happened to him?' asked Terry.
'He died of a heart attack when I was ten.' Barry sighed. 'It was very sad. My mother changed afterwards. She used to be such a happy person, but now-well-the trouble is I look so like my father-she resents that, I think.'
The conversation lapsed and they listened in silence to the pealing bells. Deacon regretted stirring memories, however good the cause. In twenty years he had not rid himself of the terrible sight of his father's blood-spattered study and the shapeless huddle that had once been Francis. Suicide, he thought, was the least forgivable of deaths because there was no time to prepare for the shock of bereavement. Whatever grief he had felt had been subsumed in disgust as he had wiped his father's blood and brains off walls, paintings, shelves, and books. It led him to think of that other suicide. 'I wonder why Verity hanged herself,' he murmured.
'I don't reckon she did,' said Terry. 'I reckon it were Billy killed her.' He gripped the air as he had done beside the brazier the first time Deacon had met him. 'That'd be more than enough to send him off his rocker.'
Deacon shook his head. 'That's the first thing the police would have looked at. The evidence of suicide must have been very convincing to persuade them otherwise.'
'Surely Anne Cattrell's right,' said Barry. 'If Verity found out by accident that she'd married her husband's murderer, wouldn't that be reason enough to kill herself?'
'I don't see why. She hated Geoffrey.' Deacon tapped his pencil against his teeth. 'According to Roger Hyde's book, her son thought she was having an affair.' He circled Verity's name and drew a line down to James Streeter. 'How about that? Think how alike James and Peter were. She'd have been attracted to James on looks alone. It's one explanation for Billy's interest in Amanda's address.'
'Meaning he was after revenge?' queried Terry doubtfully. 'I don't see that, Mike. First off, he'd be taking revenge on the wrong person, and second off, the dish wouldn't just be cold, it'd be fucking freezing.'
Deacon chuckled. He would never tell the boy how much he admired the guts he'd just shown in that handshake with Barry, but it didn't mean the admiration wasn't there.
'I ain't got one. I just reckon it's all to do with fate. See, Amanda could've talked to any old journalist, but she picked the one who'd get hung up on it enough to keep going. You said yourself you and Billy are linked by fate.'
'She didn't pick me,' said Deacon. 'I picked her, or more accurately my editor picked her and sent me off against my will to interview her. Depending on what she was expecting to achieve, she was either lucky or unlucky that events in Billy's life have faint echoes in mine.'
