Audrey took a break from her rambling to munch on a biscuit, and Jack worried that she was about to wise up and stop talking before she incriminated herself. She didn’t.

“I went round to Jimmy’s. I knew his missus from bingo—bit simple. I took her a packet of fags and offered to make her a cuppa. From her kitchen, I went into his workshop and there was the wall. Untouched.” She sat bolt upright. “I swear on my life, Mike never knew anything about any of it. Write that down! I don’t want you thinking that any of this is Mike’s fault, ’cos it ain’t. It’s mine. And seeing as Mike can’t defend himself, I have to.”

Jack dutifully wrote down that Mike knew nothing about the diamonds being stolen or hidden, or being found again by Audrey. She watched him do it. As though those words would keep her son’s memory safe.

“Them diamonds got my Shirl murdered, so I wanted them gone. I sold ’em for a tenth of what they was worth and I built a villa in Spain. By that time, my old man had died of cancer in prison, so I told everyone it was his life insurance I was spending. But he wasn’t worth nothing.” Audrey took a deep breath. “Can I have a fag break?”

Outside, Audrey didn’t light a cigarette. She stared into the blue sky and absorbed the freedom she was now feeling. Freedom from the burden of having lived with such secrets. Eventually, she grinned at Jack.

“The next time Dolly turned up on my doorstep, it was to ask for the diamonds back. I can still see her face when I told her I’d got half a million for ’em. Do you know how much they was really worth? Three million!”

Audrey opened her mouth and emptied her lungs in one long, foul laugh, until her skin turned blue, reveling in her warped little victory.

Jack could see just how pathetic she really was. Not only did she seem oblivious to how dangerous her world and its people were, she also seemed incapable of learning. Murdered daughter, stolen diamonds, corrupt son—would nothing make her wake up and smell the coffee?

“Dolly!” Audrey spat. “I told her how the stress had killed my baby and you know what she said? ‘Small mercies.’ She’s stood in my house and telling me my baby was better off dead. I should have killed her where she stood but, God forgive me, I didn’t. Mike would be alive now if I had. That’s when I told him everything. He didn’t know nothing before that and everything he did afterward was to put right the mess I’d made. If you don’t believe that, I’m leaving right now.” Audrey’s hands began to shake in anger. “Mike’s a good boy. You gotta promise that he ain’t remembered as anything else.”

Before Jack could stop himself, he said, “I promise.”

If that turned out to be a lie, he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.