‘No, I’m OK.’ Josh pushed his empty plate aside and picked up his coffee cup.

Now Shauna’s eyes filled with tears. Her lips trembled. ‘Don’t you love me any more, Josh? You used to love me . . .’

‘Don’t give me that bullshit, Shaun. I’m just going where the work is, that’s all.’

‘Then . . . I could come with you,’ she said.

Holy shit.

The thought of this poisonous bitch getting anywhere near Claire again . . .

‘No. Not a good idea. I’m going, and I’m going alone, OK?’

Josh stood up, went over to the sink and threw the coffee in there. He couldn’t drink it. He felt suffocated, like he was drowning; his throat was closed.

It’s her, he thought. Christ, I’ve got to get away.

‘I’m off out,’ he said, and headed for the door. ‘Jobs to do.’

Behind him, he heard his wife start to cry, huge theatrical sobs – the kind she was best at.

It was only when he was on the plane back to the States that he felt he could breathe easy again. Shauna had crushed the life out of him in those final days back home, and her screams and wails of protest had gone on right up to the wire. He watched an in-flight movie, a murder mystery, and his mind drifted; he saw again the flames of the gypsy burial, Pally’s bleached-white face, Trace looking at him with hatred – and why wouldn’t she?

‘More coffee, sir?’ asked the hostess, and he nodded. She refilled his cup. The drone of the plane’s engines was soothing, reminding him that he was leaving Shauna far behind.

Shauna.

His wife.

Mother of his children. Well, child, anyway.

She’d wanted Claire gone, and Claire was gone. She’d dated Jeb Cleaver. They’d been lovers and she probably still saw that low-life cunt.

All this time he’d spent with Shauna, but did he know her at all?

She’d decided he was going to be hers, he knew that. And when he’d told her way back in the seventies after the Matty O’Connor fight that it was finished with him and Claire, she had seemed . . . what? . . . surprised? Wrong-footed? It was so long ago, but he could still remember the oddness of her reaction. And that was because she’d already seen to Claire.

I’ll be yours, Jeb, only do this one thing for me . . .

Josh could almost hear Shauna saying that, her honeyed words concealing the bitter lake of bile floating underneath them. He looked out at clouds stained pink with the light of the dying sun. He sipped his coffee and looked out at the beauty of the world and was glad to be away from her, glad to be going back where he truly belonged, with Claire.

When he reached his hotel and unpacked, there was another note in his bag from Shauna.