I sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter what we do. Money comes and goes.’ I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t matter and you know it doesn’t.

The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know.

I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence.

I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be.

We rode along in silence, thinking our private thoughts. Charlie and I had an unspoken agreement not to throw ourselves into speedy travel just after a meal. There were many hardships to our type of life and we took these small comforts as they came; I found they added up to something decent enough to carry on

Hurried business is bad business.

It is hard to find a friend,' I said. 'It is the hardest thing in this world,' he agreed.