Coffin Road by Peter May

about it. Fait accompli . Tattoos were for life, and this one had been such a small thing. A delicate little butterfly just above her left ankle. The others that followed had reduced it to insignificance. A winged skull on her chest, just below the neck. An elaborate and colourful snake that coiled its way around her left arm, from shoulder to wrist. An eagle with wings spread across her back and shoulders. And a couple she hadn’t even told her mother about.
    Dressed discreetly, it was possible for all of them to be hidden. But pointing that out had done nothing to allay her mother’s fury with each addition. And after every grounding she had simply gone out and got another. They couldn’t lock her up in her room for ever.
    Her mother had demanded to know where she had got the money. But Karen only ever shrugged, infuriating her further. How could she tell her that the tattoo artist was a friend returning favours? An older friend, with a penchant for teenage girls.
    She had gone from being Daddy’s little girl to Mother’s nightmare in twenty-four short months. A deliberate decision. To leave behind the fragile, broken child, so filled with regret, and become . . . she didn’t know what. Anyone but who she really was.
    Finally, she couldn’t stand it any more and jumped off the bed, ripping out her earbuds and crossing to the laptop on the dresser. She scrolled down a list of recently downloaded albums. Anathema, Motionless in White, Dark Princess, and a host of others whose music she really didn’t care for. A culture mostly from before her time. Loud, frenetic, violent music that her mother detested even more than Karen. She selected an album by We Are The Fallen called Tear The World Down , clicked play , and cranked up the volume on her sound system. Classic metal, screaming lyrics about sorrow, pain and tears in a song called ‘Bury Me Alive’. The perfect accompaniment to the unwanted sounds of sex.
    It was less than five minutes before her mother stormed into the room, pulling a black silk dressing gown around her to cover her nakedness. She was flushed from more than anger, pupils dilated, her blond-streaked hair a tangled mess. ‘Will you turn that bloody noise down!’
    Karen stood her ground defiantly. ‘Funny. I was just going to ask you to do the same thing.’
    Her mother frowned and shook her head. ‘What are you talking about?’ And she stalked across the room to the computer and grabbed the mouse to click pause . The sudden silence seemed even louder than the music.
    ‘You and baldy boy, fucking on the other side of my bedroom wall. You think I want to listen to that all night?’
    ‘Don’t you use that kind of language with me!’
    ‘Oh. Oh. So you’re not fucking then? You’re making love, is that it? Well, it doesn’t sound much like love to me. More like war. All that banging and screaming.’ She drew a deep breath, sucking up all her anger from deep inside. ‘I don’t need that shit all night, every night.’
    Perhaps it was guilt that stopped her mother from coming straight back at her. But it was the ruthless streak Karen had been cultivating that led her to press home her advantage.
    ‘Cos that’s what it’s going to be, isn’t it? Now that he’s moving in. Sleeping in my dad’s bed, sitting in his chair, screwing his wife. Telling me what to do.’ Her mouth curled in anger as she almost spat the accusation at her mother. ‘You didn’t wait very long, did you?’
    ‘Christ, Karen, it’s been two bloody years! What did you think I was going to do? Spend the rest of my life in mourning? Dress in black and live like a nun? I’m not even forty, for God’s sake.’
    ‘And what about me?
    ‘What about you?’ The words exploded from her mother’s lips in anger. ‘You’re only seventeen! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, and all you want to do is romanticise some imaginary past that never even existed. You did nothing but fight with your father.’
    ‘I