Emer looked out the window at the grey streets and greyer buildings. Even in the blazing hot sunshine, everything looked washed out and run down. It made her sad to think her dad might have ended up living somewhere like this.

‘Think of some of his better known songs.’

‘I can’t think right now,’ Emer said. ‘I’ve already told you that.’

‘Sorry,’ Dee said, sounding anything but. ‘Delilah.’

‘Delilah? You mean that’s what Dee’s short for?’ Despite herself, Emer smiled. ‘Oh my God, that’s funny.’

‘Glad you think so. Look, we’re almost there. Now all I have to do is find a parking space. Which isn’t going to be easy, by the looks of it.’

It took a while to find a parking space. Eventually, she found a space on a quiet, residential street that was less scruffy than some of the others Emer had seen. Instead of high-rise concrete blocks, this one had Victorian terraced houses running along either side. The houses were small, but most of them were well-tended.

‘It’s not this street,’ Dee said, as if she knew what Emer was thinking. ‘Just a short walk, though.’

A short walk and another world away, Emer realised as they arrived at the correct street. Here, there were no pretty terraced houses. Instead, they’d entered a dark, claustrophobic street that shouted poverty from every corner. Row after row of concrete council blocks, many of the windows boarded over. A gang of young men stood guarding the entrance to one of the buildings, their eyes boring into Dee and Emer as they passed. The air was thick with the smell of fried food and marijuana.

At the last block of flats, a tall, painfully thin man stood at the entrance smoking a cigarette. Despite the heat, he was wearing a long coat and when Emer shook his hand after Dee had introduced them both, his skin was icy cold.

‘Took your time,’ Leonard said.

His voice was thick and gravelly, as if someone had driven a tractor over his vocal chords.

‘Traffic was terrible,’ Dee said. ‘Sorry.’

She looked up at the high-rise block of flats behind Leonard.

‘Is this it?’

‘Only block on the street that hasn’t been emptied by the council,’ Leonard said. ‘They’re selling off all these buildings to private developers. Which means the poor people who’ve lived here all their lives are being dispersed to whatever part of the city will take them.’ He looked at Emer. ‘Which means if the fella living here is your old man, we’re lucky. Another few months and he wouldn’t be here.’

‘You really think it could be him?’

Leonard started to answer, but his words turned into a cough.

‘No idea,’ he said eventually. ‘All I know is Annie Holden met up with him several times. Could be all sorts of other reasons for that, of course.’