“It’s left there deliberately to trap a body. That’s how they’d know who you are. You’ve got to take care,” she said adamantly. “I feel responsible for bringing you here.”

“I want to get to know these people,” replied Jack. “I’m sharing this island with them.”

“But they are not inclined to share it with you,” she said coldly. “Remember that.”

On her days off she would accompany him on his rounds.

“What are we going in here for?” she asked, as they entered a small hardware shop.

“Nails,” he said.

“And what do we want with nails?”

“We want them for normality.”

Then he brought her across to the newsagent’s. The old lady there and himself had by now, much to Catherine’s amazement, grown familiar. She gave him a warm welcome. “Your paper, love,” she said and handed him the Belfast Newsletter. She picked it out from a bundle of others with the names of those that had ordered them written in pen across the top. On his was written the Irishman.

“The Irishman?” said Jack astounded, and he laughed.

“Well, we didn’t know your name,” she replied, embarrassed at her faux pas.

“It’s Jack,” said Jack.

“Jack,” she said. “I’ll remember that for again.”

His accent had marked him out as the Irishman.

“Where are you bringing me now?” asked Catherine. He took her across to a café. Catherine was shocked to find a group of RUC men seated on tall stools at the counter eating sandwiches and sweet cakes. The policemen’s rifles were laid across the counter in front of them. They called a greeting to Jack. He tipped his forehead in reply.

“Soon I suppose you’ll be on first name terms with them as well,” whispered Catherine.

“Give us two Queen cakes and two cups of coffee,” said Jack. They sat down among the building labourers, who sucked homemade soup out of plastic cartons, and local ladies eating homemade scones.

“I feel at home here,” he told Catherine.

“Don’t tell me about it,” she replied, “it only makes me anxious.”

In the early evenings, the kitchen and drawing room would be suffused with blues and reds from the stained-glass upper lights in the front windows. Jack placed his typewriter at a clear window facing the back garden. In the distance he had a view of the sea and beyond that, on good days, Carrickfergus. He could hear the ships hooting as they headed into Belfast Lough from Liverpool and the Isle of Man.