Free Sleep Sister: A page-turning novel of psychological suspense by Laura Elliot

with whiskey or snapped the tops off Guinness bottles. This small room with its glass ornaments and dried flowers in the window was the ‘showing-off room’, used only when visitors arrived. Cigarettes were lit, smoke spiralling upwards. Barry coughed and muffled the sound into his fist. The session was Connie’s idea. At first he was irritable when she suggested it. He feared the musicians were humouring him. He didn’t want them to see him like this – a sickly, dried-up shadow. She assured him they needed this time with him. They wanted to participate. She did not say ‘in your dying’, but the words hung there and Beth felt this understanding flow swift as a current between the two of them.
    Before the musicians arrived, Connie eased him from their bed, exchanging his crumpled pyjamas for a pair of jeans and a shirt with neon flowers, a gaudy pattern that only succeeded in emphasising his wasted body. She seated him in the armchair so that his friends wouldn’t notice how slowly he moved. Beth trimmed his beard. Like his hair it had grown sparse over the past few months and was cut into shape with a few snips.
    As the glasses emptied the tempo of the music quickened, carrying its own momentum. Soon the musicians were lost in the notes and Barry became one with them, his eyes bright as he jigged his foot. For a short while he played the spoons. His hands were skeletal, the spoons rapping off his skinny knees. The sound reminded Beth of rattling bones. He called on her to dance. She was seized by a familiar embarrassment, reverting to the panic of a small child asked to perform in front of adults. She had not danced since that Christmas at Cherry Vale. Something painful caught in her memory and was released in the same instant. A sensation so familiar she hardly noticed it.
    The fiddle player, Annie Loughrey, ran the bow over her fiddle, shouting, ‘How about a reel, Beth? We’ll go easy on you.’
    Beth took off her shoes, but her feet still felt heavy, clumsy because she hadn’t danced for so long. When the musicians yelled and stamped she was carried away by their enthusiasm. She was aware of Stewart watching her, his shoulder propped against the wall, a glass of beer in his hand. She moved to the increasing tempo, arms stiff by her sides, hair flying. Her legs kicked out, her shirt swirled. His eyes told her he liked what he saw before he looked away. Peter did not look away. When she finished dancing he swung her around and kissed her cheek.
    Soon afterwards her father’s shoulders slumped. The animation left his face. Connie moved swiftly towards him but he insisted on one more tune.
    ‘Play “Carrickfergus”, Annie. No one can stroke that tune the way you can.’
    ‘It would draw tears from a stone,’ agreed Blake Dolan, bending his head dolefully over his bodhrán.
    Annie began to play. The young girl had long delicate fingers. The notes rose, a thin quavering lament. The thoughts of each person in the room seemed to fuse, achingly aware of the wasted man sitting so still in their midst.
    Soon afterwards, the musicians left to play in The Fiddler’s Nest, hearty in their farewells, not admitting that this was the last goodbye. Barry, equally anxious to keep up the pretence, joked them from the room.
    ‘Cheer up, me darlin’. I’ve seen him looking worse on many a morning after a hard session in the Nest,’ the bodhrán player joked with Beth at the front door. He patted the back of her head, as if he was already offering his condolences. Peter also said goodbye. He had a painting to finish before morning.
    When Connie came downstairs after settling Barry for the night she poured a glass of whiskey and drank it neat, tilting her head back. Under the light Beth noticed grey roots fading into her black hair.
    ‘You’re going to collapse before this is over if you don’t watch yourself,’ Beth warned. ‘Daddy should be back in hospital.’
    ‘You know how he feels about hospitals,’ replied