The smell of bacon filled the kitchen. Biddy had primed Mary on the way to Malcolm’s. ‘You’ll cook Mr Coffey breakfast for him. I need to ask him to do something he won’t want to do and, like with all men, it will be a lot easier if he is distracted by food to put in his belly.’

Mary now set a plate loaded with two slices of freshly sliced bread, dripping in butter melted by the hot bacon and fried egg with rivulets of HP sauce running down the sides, in front of Malcolm. Biddy winked at her; Mary had done better than she had expected. Now she would let his initial indignation melt away and compassion take over, while the smell of bacon wreaked havoc with his resolve and the warmth of it melted his heart.

Biddy felt the familiar pangs of pity wash over her as he took the first bite of his sandwich. His wife had been a fatality during the blitz, in the bomb that had dropped on Mill Road hospital, and their baby, not a day old, would very likely have been on her breast. They lay there still, buried beneath the concrete that covered those bodies unable to be retrieved. His parents, out shopping, had been killed in a direct hit two weeks later, so as Malcolm fought for king and country, he lost his entire family at home in Liverpool and returned to the dust-sheeted family home where the ghosts of everyone he had loved had waited in the shadows to greet him.

Biddy watched as he bit into the doorstep and a slow smile of appreciation appeared.

‘Shall I pour the tea?’ Mary asked.

Now it was Biddy’s turn to be impressed. ‘My, Sister has trained you well over at that convent,’ she said as Mary poured the tea. ‘Get a cup for yourself too. So, Malcolm, I want you to send that telegram and I want you to do it because your conscience will trouble you something wicked if you don’t when you get to hear about all the kids who have gone hungry and how the carnival had to be cancelled. You don’t want that, do you? We don’t have long.’

‘Biddy, you’re putting me in a terrible position. I’m not a lawbreaker and I don’t like trouble. I live my life a certain way, the proper way, with everything just so.’

‘Tell you what, Malcolm, you send a telegram saying Jerry Deane is in need of a usual favour. That way, you aren’t committing yourself to anything and Conor will know exactly what you’re asking him?’

Biddy knew before the words had left her mouth that he would agree.