Noreen got lost on her way to the north London suburbs. She got confused between the Metropolitan and Circle lines, then, when she finally got off at Edgware Road she got on a bus heading in the wrong direction, and ended up back at Hyde Park Corner. Every time she stopped somebody to ask where she was, they just glared at her as if she was mad. Eventually, more by miracle than design, she managed to get herself to Connolly’s pub in Wembley, which was owned by John’s brother, Kieran. She walked in the door and she was back home. And not just because of the shamrock banner above the bar and the smell of warm beer and stale cigarette smoke in the mornings. Kieran was delighted to see her and gave her a warm hug. Then, without asking why she was there, he dragged her upstairs to his wife, Sinead. Sinead was so excited that she called the four kids in from the street to sit with her while she called her sister. Maureen arrived within five minutes of the call with her two children, kissed Noreen until she thought she would never stop then used Sinead’s phone to call her cousin, Finoula. Finoula wasn’t in, her husband said, because she was visiting the sister and their three children with her four children in Cricklewood. They didn’t have a phone. So, before Noreen had time to object, or explain that she was simply there to locate John, she found herself being bundled into the back of a Ford Cortina with two adults and half a dozen children then dragged into a small, brand new house in a tidy, suburban estate.

The children were sent to the corner shop to buy Mr Kipling cakes, ham, white sliced bread and Rothmans cigarettes and for the next three hours Noreen was effectively held hostage by the Connolly family.

She learned that they had a great life in London. That the work was easy, the kids were happy and even the Catholic priests were better, with a looser attitude to sex. Maureen confided that after five kids in four years, her parish priest had given her dispensation to go on the pill. A good, convent girl, she had been sceptical but he had reassured her that he would try to fix it for her not to burn in hell for all eternity. Then he said, ‘Maureen? By the time you get to hell, you’ll have had so much fun you won’t care!’

They all roared laughing. It was fun, Noreen had to admit, hanging out with her own but despite the craic, she did not learn where John was.

‘I thought he was with you,’ Sinead said. ‘Sure, we haven’t seen him since he got here.’

‘What the hell would he be doing up here with this mad clatter of kids when he can be down there living it up in Chelsea with your gang?’

Then, they looked worried.

Noreen lied her way out of it saying there had been a misunderstanding. That she thought he had gone back for a spell and had expected him back. She must have got her dates wrong.

Kieran broke the awkward moment by offering to drop her back to Chelsea in the Cortina.

When they got to Quex Road he said, ‘John told me you broke off the engagement.’

Noreen stayed quiet. She was mortified. Upset too.

‘He told me it was all off and I told him he was a stupid fool to be putting pressure on you like that.’

Noreen still didn’t know what to say.

‘You’re a modern girl, Noreen, a worker. Not like Sinead. Don’t get me wrong, she works at home and that and helps me out, like, but I’ll tell you something for nothing – I sometimes wonder if we would have had all the kids if we had our time again. Times are changing, I told him.’

‘Where is he, Kieran? I need to see him. Did he go back to Carney?’

‘Not yet. He said he was going to hang around London for a bit. I asked him if he wanted to come and work in the pub for a while, stay with me and Sinead. But he said he had met a couple of guys on the buildings and that he was going to take some time for himself. You know John he likes to stay busy. Like yourself.’

‘I think I might have broken his heart, Kieran.’

‘Of course you did, girleen. But I know my brother and he’s a tough chaw. He’ll be back. Sure, if I had a pound for every time that wife of mine has broken my heart I’d be a rich man. They’re still picking bits of me up off the floor of the Cork ballroom from the time she took off with Mel Murphy.’

Yes, but she married you in the end though, Noreen thought.

Kieran dropped her to the door of the flat and after she thanked him she said, ‘Let me know if John gets in touch, won’t you? Tell him I’m looking for him.’

‘I will,’ Kieran said, ‘but you might hear from him before I do.’

Noreen smiled but she knew, in her heart, that it wouldn’t happen. She had broken her big man. He was gone.

❊

The night porter at Brown’s gave a curt, ‘Goodnight, sir,’ when he opened the front door to the guest and let him go up to his room unhindered. When people came in at 4 a.m. they didn’t usually want to chat. This chap was disfigured, so he wouldn’t like being looked at, so the porter didn’t notice the blood on the edge of the coat cuffs of his dark coat, or that his hands were plunged deep into his pockets. He didn’t wonder why the guest did not call the lift even though he was on the fourth floor, but instead shouldered the door to the stairs so that he would not have to take his hands out and risk them being seen.

Dorian had taken his room key with him, thank God. He could not have known earlier that day that he would be killing a man and coming back covered in blood. Had he killed the boy? As near as dammit anyway. He was smashed to bits in an alley, and if he survived, he would be no prettier than Dorian. Although, Dorian had run out of steam after he became unconscious. He had thrashed at his torso a few times but then been aware that, essentially, he was beating a stranger – the type of thing only gutty boys and guttersnipes did looking for money or kicks. He was a gentleman who had lost his temper. When his temper cooled, he stopped. He didn’t bother checking if the body was alive or dead. In truth, he didn’t care either way. In any case, he was not a murderer. Not like her. She had driven him to it. It had not been a cold-blooded act but a crime of passion. And there was more passion to come.

When he opened the door of his suite he found an envelope on the carpet in front of him. He opened it and inside was another envelope addressed to him in the handwriting he recognised as the insufferable Mrs Clark’s. It aggravated him that he even knew her handwriting so he put it to one side and left it until the morning.

Dorian showered and went to bed. The rigours of walking and beating that he had put his body through caused him to sleep soundly.

The next morning he opened Mrs Clark’s envelope over breakfast, which he always took in his room.

This came addressed to you and your wife. It was being kept at the post office with all of your letters but then my friend alerted me. I thought that it might be important so I decided it might not wait so forwarded it across to you.

Then a page of endless guff and gossip along with:

If there is anything I can do for you here.

A barely veiled invitation to tell her what the letter was about. If she hadn’t steamed it open already.

When he read the contents he sincerely hoped she hadn’t.

Dear Mr and Mrs Black,

My name is Noreen Lyons and I share a flat with your daughter, Hanna…

It wasn’t a long letter, but it was a clear one and the address given was the one he had been to the night before. It was dated a few weeks ago. It had probably been read by every old biddy in Killa by now, but he didn’t care.

This was a wonderful, wonderful turn of events.

He was, after all, the civilised person. The gentleman. He did not want to go sneaking around on his loved one. And he did love power. Otherwise why would he have done what he did last night? Why would he have put himself through that ordeal, physically, mentally and emotionally unless he truly wanted her back? He was not a savage. He could forgive her for what she had done. Dorian did not believe in God, but holding this Noreen’s letter he felt that perhaps this was the hand of the saviour in action. He went to the desk in his room, pulled out the notepad and wrote a short note.

He took it downstairs to the reception desk and asked if they might be able to get it into the morning post for it to arrive at the Kings Road that very afternoon.

❊

Noreen didn’t have to go back to work that afternoon and, feeling like company, she walked straight round to That Girl to see Lara. When she got there she was surprised to find Annie there too.

As soon as they saw her, Lara turned her head slightly towards Noreen then rested her hand on her cheek so that it shielded her face from Annie.

‘Annie has a new boyfriend, Noreen. Isn’t that great?’

Her expression clearly said – if you say anything, I’ll murder you.

‘Fantastic,’ Noreen said, her face a flat plate of sarcasm.

Annie did not notice.

‘I’m so in love,’ she said, ‘but the best news of all, Noreen?’

She looked as if she was going to explode with excitement and joy. Noreen had an urge to pick her up and throw her out the window. She resisted. For Lara’s sake. Although why she was protecting Annie when she should be punishing her for messing about with Matthew was beyond her.

‘You’ll never guess?’

Jesus, what was she? Ten?

‘Try me.’

Annie threw Lara a ‘can I tell her’ look that Noreen found insufferably offensive. There the two of them were, sharing secrets again.

‘Lara and Coleman finally got together. I think they’re in love too.’

Noreen did not know what to say. That was how this day was going. People said things to her and she was lost for words. Was this what unhappiness felt like? She thought her and Lara were back on track, but it seemed that weird Annie had pushed her way back in again. Using Matthew. And more fool Lara, getting back with a man like Coleman that had used and abused her already.

‘I’m going back to the flat,’ she said. ‘I have to get changed for the evening shift.’

Noreen had taken the day off but decided she had nothing better to do than work tonight, after all. Neither Annie nor Lara seemed to notice, or care, that she was upset.

In fact, when she was leaving, Lara tapped her on the shoulder and mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ as she walked out the door. Noreen raised her eyes to heaven but Lara, demented with love, or whatever, didn’t seem to notice that either.

When she got back to the flat Noreen found a letter waiting for her. Strange handwriting and a London postmark. She thought it was John, although it wasn’t his handwriting. Quickly tearing it open, she hoped something awful hadn’t happened to him.

It was a short letter written on headed notepaper from Brown’s Hotel. It looked very posh and was from Annie’s, or rather Hanna’s, father. He said that he was in London. He explained that his wife had been very sick and died and that, being a doctor and unable to save her, their beloved daughter had blamed him and run away. (Noreen was unsurprised at this. Annie didn’t strike her as being very bright and this was typically selfish of these whimsical, overtly feminine types of girls.) Hanna was the only family he had left in the world and Noreen’s letter had been like receiving a lifeline. He knew that Hanna would be upset if he got in touch directly, so was there any possibility that she could find it in her heart to facilitate a meeting between them? She would need to keep it quiet from Hanna beforehand, of course, but he felt certain that once she saw him, all would be forgiven and forgotten. ‘In the end,’ he said, ‘we are father and daughter and should be there to comfort each other.’

Noreen thought of her own father, Frank, and of all the times he had annoyed her to distraction over the years – including just a few weeks ago when he had written to Matthew. She could never fall out with her own father to the point of estrangement but she could certainly imagine how that might happen.

Poor Annie, and the poor, poor man. Of course she would help them reunite.

Later that evening Noreen asked Coleman if she could use the office phone. Dorian sounded like a real gentleman. She made an arrangement for him to call at the flat. She reassured him that she would make certain that Annie would be there, alone, for at least a couple of hours.