‘I’d rather not think about it.’

‘Well, it can’t be put off indefinitely. The factory will want to know.’

Beresford made no comment. He was sitting in the armchair beside the fireplace and his mind was wandering. May went off into the kitchen and made a pot of tea, putting it on a tray with two cups and saucers along with the milk jug and the sugar bowl. Bringing it into the living room, she set it down on the table. Beresford was a study in concentration. His forehead was wrinkled, his eyes gleaming and his teeth clenched. Saying nothing, his mother poured two cups of tea and added milk and sugar to both before stirring them in with a teaspoon. Her son was still wrestling with a thorny problem. All of a sudden, he announced a solution.

‘I’ll go back to work tomorrow.’

‘But you can’t,’ she protested. ‘You’re not ready for it yet.’

‘I’ve got to face up to it, Mum, and show some strength for a change. I can’t just stay at home and brood. It’s driving me mad. I need to occupy my mind. And there’s another thing I’ve decided.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I can’t let the rest of the team down. We were due to have a practice session after work tomorrow and I want to be there to lead it.’

May was aghast. ‘You can’t worry about football at a time like this.’

‘I have to — the cup final is less than ten days away.’

‘Let someone else take over, Neil.’

‘There is nobody else, Mum. I’m their coach. They rely on me.’

‘They won’t expect anything from you now,’ argued May. ‘You’re in mourning. We all are. There’s been a dreadful tragedy and you need to recover from it before you even think of going back to the factory.’

‘I’ve always been a fighter,’ he said, banging his thigh with a fist, ‘and I’m ashamed of the way I behaved. We have to win that cup now. Shirley may not be able to play but she’ll be our inspiration. It will give the whole team a lift.’

May picked up a cup and saucer. ‘Have your tea, Neil.’

‘I’ve been working it out,’ he said, ignoring her offer. ‘Audrey Turner can take over Shirley’s position as centre forward. She may not be as fast or as clever at dribbling but Audrey is nearly six feet. She’ll win everything in the air. The other person I can bring into the forward line is …’

His eyes were gleaming more than ever now as they sighted a victory against the odds at the cup final. He explained in detail how he would defeat the opposing team. It was impossible to stop him. May put the tea back on the tray and reached for the other cup. Though she was pleased to see him so animated, she was alarmed by the edge of frenzy in his voice. It had ceased to become a football match to him and had turned into a mission. Beresford was driven to succeed for the sake of the factory, the players who’d worked so hard under him and, most of all, for his wife who’d been the undisputed star. Deprived of a chance to raise the trophy herself, Shirley Beresford would nevertheless lead them to a triumphant win.

May was disturbed. She didn’t think her son was fit to return to work, let alone coach a football team. It was as if he was in the grip of a fever. Unable to check him, she tried to humour him, agreeing with everything he proposed and even managing a supportive smile. While she knew little about the game of football, she understood its significance in the household. Having heard her son and her daughter-in-law discuss the team at length, she knew all the names of the players and — though she didn’t understand the finer points of the game when she stood on the touchline — she had a good idea of their individual worth. When he paused for breath, she took the opportunity to step in and remind him of something.

‘At least you won’t have to find a new goalkeeper.’

He stared at her blankly. ‘What did you say?’

‘Maureen Quinn survived the blast. She can still play for you, Neil.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of asking her,’ he said with a note of shock in her voice. ‘You should know better than to suggest it. She was nearby when that bomb went off. It will have shattered her nerves.’

‘Supposing that she wants to play?’

‘There’s no chance of that, Mum. All she’ll want to do at the moment is to stay well away from the factory and the team. Maureen was a good goalkeeper but we’ll have to do without her. It would be cruel even to approach her.’

‘How do you feel now, Maureen?’

‘I just feel so … numb.’

‘That’s not unusual.’

‘I do things without really noticing that I’m doing them. For instance, I ate breakfast this morning but can’t tell you what I had.’

‘What about sleep?’

‘I did get some last night.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

After his visit to the priest, Joe Keedy had moved on to Maureen’s house, making sure that he arrived after her father had gone off to work. Talking to her in his presence was frustrating. As it was, it took him a long time to persuade her mother to let him interview Maureen on her own. Though she had no real objection to it, Diane was afraid of what her husband would say if she allowed a detective to question Maureen alone. It would be one more thing to hide from him. They sat opposite each other in the living room. Keedy decided that the sight of his notebook might inhibit her so he relied on memory instead.

‘Does your father know that you went to church yesterday?’ he began.

‘No — we didn’t tell him.’

‘Why did he stop you going there on a Sunday?’

‘He said that we’d grown out of it.’

‘Is that what you think, Maureen?’

She hunched her shoulders. ‘I have to do what my father tells me.’

‘What about your brothers?’

‘They were braver than me,’ she replied with a smile. ‘They were very naughty sometimes. Liam was the worst.’

‘But you’re pretty brave yourself, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘If you play in goal for a football team, you have to have a lot of guts. That ball must come at you very hard and sometimes from a short distance.’

She nodded. ‘I broke a finger once,’ she said, ‘trying to save a penalty. I didn’t realise till after the game. You get carried away when you’re playing. You don’t always notice the pain.’

‘I know. I used to be in a football team at one time.’

‘We have a lot of injuries. Everyone takes it so seriously.’

‘And so they should. The competitive urge is very important. It’s what drives us on to take chances and push ourselves to the limit.’ She appeared to be listening but Keedy wasn’t sure that he had her full attention. ‘I’m told that Father Cleary came to see you yesterday.’

She sat up in surprise. ‘Who told you that?’

‘I called in to see him before I came on here. He said that you’d been a keen churchgoer at one time. You enjoyed the services.’

‘It’s true — I did.’

‘You certainly enjoyed them more than your brothers.’

She smiled again. ‘They could be wicked when they wanted to be.’

‘What did they think when they heard you’d taken up football?’

‘They laughed at first. They said that girls couldn’t play football because they were too slow and too weak. When they came home on leave, I took Liam and Anthony to the park and we put a couple of coats down to mark the goalposts. I stood between them,’ she recalled, warmed by the recollection. ‘They were amazed how many goals I saved. They stopped laughing after that.’

‘Tell me about the other girls at the birthday party.’

She became wary. ‘I’ve already done that, Sergeant.’

‘You told us a little about them, Maureen, but I’m sure that you left a lot out. It was too soon afterwards. You couldn’t be expected to remember everything.’ Her reluctance was almost tangible. ‘You’ll have to talk about them at the inquest.’

‘The inquest?’ she echoed, cowering on the settee.

‘It’s a legal requirement in cases like this.’

‘But why do I have to go to it?’

‘Your testimony is vital,’ he told her. ‘As the only survivor, what you say will carry a lot of weight. You’ll be asked about things you saw when you first arrived in that outhouse and what the general mood was.’