‘Was he a drug addict?’ Hawthorne asked. Anne didn’t reply. ‘That was the natural inference and I think it’s what you wanted us to believe. A drug addict takes a drug overdose and he dies. But there are other sorts of addicts.’ I will never forget the pause that followed. It seemed to stitch itself into the very air. ‘Gambling addicts, for example.’ That was when Anne Cleary knew it was all over.
