Free Those We Left Behind by Stuart Neville

felt the heat then, spreading between his legs. And with it, almost instantly, the burning shame. He stopped resisting. His defeat total, his humiliation complete, he let his body go limp.
    The fingers withdrew from his mouth, and he coughed up torn meat and bile. Thomas’s weight left his chest. He gasped air, coughed it out again, gasped, coughed, tears streaming from his eyes.
    When he had recovered enough to breathe without hacking, to open his eyes and see through the tears, he realised Thomas and Ciaran had gone. Probably up to their room. The urine had started to chill. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and battled himself under control.
    By the time his mother came home, he had changed his trousers, cleaned his face, and had mopped up most of the liquid. He had poured bleach on the floor to cover the smell.
    His mother asked what had happened as she put the shopping bags on the counter.
    ‘I spilled a can of Coke,’ he said, his shame real, even if the words were a lie.
    ‘Who said you could take a Coke?’ she asked.
    ‘No one,’ he said. ‘I just took it.’
    ‘Well,’ she said, looking down at the wet floor, streaked by the mop. ‘Serves you right for stealing. You know you’re not to take things without asking. You might think it’s only a can of Coke, but next thing you know, it’ll be money. Or worse. And what’d you use bleach for? Sure, water would’ve done.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his head down, his voice small in his throat. ‘I wanted to make it clean.’
    ‘Go on,’ she said, taking the mop from his hands. ‘I’ll sort it out. Go to your room.’
    And he did. He went there every time he was alone in the house with the brothers, closed the door behind him. But sometimes the door opened again, and Thomas would come in, sometimes with his brother.
    Daniel still occasionally woke from his dreams, kicking and thrashing. Niamh had tolerated his nightmares for the two years they’d been together. She had the bruises to show for it.
    A pang of guilt resonated in his chest for the way he’d spoken to her, the way he’d pushed her aside like she didn’t matter. He switched off the TV, turned out the lights, and made his way to the flat’s sole bedroom.
    Niamh didn’t acknowledge him as he entered, but he knew she was awake. He lay down on the bed, on top of the covers, put his arm around her shrouded form.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
    Silence for a while, then she let out a long sigh. ‘It’s all right. I know it’s hard for you. But I wish you wouldn’t dwell on it. There’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing you can change. You have to put it behind you and move on.’
    ‘I know,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll try.’
    He kissed her ear, felt her hair soft against his cheek. She reached from under the duvet and patted his hand.
    Within ten minutes, her breathing had deepened and established the rhythm of sleep. He lay awake, still dressed. Sleep came as easy to her as it was elusive to him. He took his phone from his pocket and opened the Notes app.
    The car’s registration number.
    He added the words, ‘Nissan Micra, black.’

11
    PAULA CUNNINGHAM SWALLOWED the last of the wine. It left a metallic sweetness at the back of her mouth. The quietness of the house pressed in on her. Even the breathing of her dog Angus on the couch beside her barely cut through the silence. He was a mongrel she and Alex had adopted from the pound. Alex was long gone, but the dog stayed. She hadn’t complained when Alex named him after the guitarist from AC/DC. It seemed to suit the scruffy hound anyway. They had wasted many hours trying to name the constituent parts of his breeding, from lurcher to black Labrador. It didn’t matter in the end. Not after what Cunningham had done. Alex left, told her she could keep the dog, it was nothing but a scrawny mutt anyway.
    She looked at the clock on the wall. Past midnight. The cigarette cravings had been bad tonight. Three weeks