“Of course he did, dear, but I’m sure that he would have taken himself off somewhere very discreet to do it.”

Dan suppressed a laugh. “What? Like the desert?”

“Probably.”

“A bit of overkill, though, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Forty days and forty nights.”

Battersea Gran narrowed her eyes at her son, but it was insufficient to mask a sparkle of humour. “No need to be irreverent now, Daniel Porter.”

The block of flats, situated overlooking Battersea Reach Wharf, was typical of uninspired sixties architecture. Originally council flats, it had been bought for a song in the early nineties by some property developer who saw the potential in its riverside location. Having refurbished the building from leaky top to graffitied bottom, he stuck a uniformed concierge in the hallway, gave the block a smart new name, and flogged the flats off as “exclusive residences.” The building had been inhabited in the main by retired gentlefolk, and when Dan had moved his mother there after the death of his father, he had had grave misgivings about whether it would be for the best, taking her away from her simple lifestyle in Tottenham Hale and placing her in this somewhat up-market environment.

But his doubts proved to be unfounded. His mother treated the place as if it were an outpost of her own little street in North London, and single-handedly went about developing a community spirit in the building that had never existed before her arrival. She forced greetings from her reticent fellow residents in the lift and went around knocking on doors and inviting her somewhat surprised and lonely neighbours around to her little flat for cups of tea and mountains of her own homemade scones. Even the grumpy old concierge was soon won over by her open friendliness and hospitality. Flat 10F2 in Cavendish Rise soon became the focal point for residents’ meetings and fund-raising campaigns to pay for pot-plants in the foyer and Christmas parties for the few children who lived in the block. Not that Battersea Gran was much good at constitutional matters, or discussing things like plumbing problems and rent reviews, but she put herself in charge of refreshments, and that proved an excellent rallying call to all those with empty stomachs and infinitely greater discussion skills than her own.

“I’ll only be a moment, dear,” she said as she let herself into the flat and hurried off down the narrow passage to the lavatory. “Just go into the lounge and I’ll be with you in a minute.”