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The story was that May Malone had a monster in her house. She kept it in chains. If you went round to the back of the house and put your ear to the wall you’d hear it groaning. You’d hear it howling at night if you listened hard. There were tales about May and a priest from Blyth. There was a baby, it was said, but the baby was horrible because it was born from such a sin. Even weirder tales were whispered. The devil himself had come to May and it was the son of Satan living in her house. She’s been with horses, with dogs, with goats. Anyway, whatever it was you’d risk your body, your sanity and probably your soul if you got too close. Norman Trench was ten or eleven at the time. He lived in the new flats in Felling Square. May’s house was at the bottom end of Crimea Terrace, not far from the muddy green where the lads played football. Norman’s mam tightened her lips when he asked her about it. “Them daft tales! Tek tae notice. What’s done is done. Just keep away and leave her be.” To look at May, you’d never think she had a monster. She was getting on, but she wore tight skirts, she dyed her hair, and she wore high heels that clicked and clacked on the pavements as she hurried along. She was lapsed. Everybody knew the tale of how she’d stood up in church in the middle of Mass and yelled that the priest was a lyin bliddy bastard twat, then stormed down the aisle, spat at the altar, and never went again. You could see people’s faces closing down as she hurried through the streets. She hardly spoke to anybody and you could see that nobody wanted to speak to her. Except for some of the blokes, of course, the ones who sighed as she came near, and who couldn’t help following with their eyes when she passed by. Norman was a miserable kind of kid. Aye, he had some reasons – the brother that’d died at three years old, a dad that’d gone wrong with the drink and ended up in