She kept confessing these things to him over and over, Lee processed. Telling him about her wild past, and bringing up the not so secret family secrets was one thing. He could deal with those things. His mother lived the kind of twisted adventures that most closet perverts could only dream of.

Stevie had paid dearly for it though, and – or so Lee felt – unfairly, with the loss of his dad, and the loss of her son, temporarily, with the gaining of the absolute wanker that Ray was. Still, just as she admitted, none of those could ever suppress the creature that she was deep down.

Face facts,...