‘He was having an affair over there. With her. It’s someone from his past. He knew her years ago. I know her, that bitch.’ Shauna almost spat out the last word. ‘I thought he was up to something and I hired a private detective to find out.’

‘Christ.’ Connor looked again at the prints. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Believe it. There’s the proof.’

Fury was gnawing at Shauna. How did Claire fucking Milo have the gall to go near Josh again? Josh was hers. Hadn’t she learned her fucking lesson? No. She hadn’t. Shauna gathered up the prints, stuffed them back in the envelope.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Connor.

Shauna thought about that. Josh was gone, out of her reach. The Milo clan weren’t, though. And that little cow . . . ‘I want to know where she’s living, what she does. What sort of low-life whore goes around stealing another woman’s husband!’

130

130

The fates had been unkind to Claire Milo. All that time apart from Josh, and now he had been snatched away.

‘We should have grown old together,’ she cried to Suki. ‘This shouldn’t have happened.’

‘I know,’ said Suki, thinking that it was beyond sad.

Sometimes in the weeks after Josh’s death she had truly thought that her mother was going crazy. She had seemed either dazed or hysterical, one or the other. Weight dropped off her; she had no interest in food, the New Year festivities, she had no interest in anything, it seemed. The club ran on, thanks to Donna’s good management, but Claire didn’t go there as she used to, chat to the clients, help out behind the bar.

‘These things take time,’ Donna told Suki when she expressed her worries to her. ‘Just be there for her. Support her. Claire’s a strong woman. She’ll pull round.’

But Suki was starting to wonder if that was going to happen. She’d heard of people dying of a broken heart, and was starting to fear that’s what was in store for her mother. Sometimes people just lost the will to go on.

I can’t lose her, thought Suki in desperation.

‘Come on, let’s go out,’ she said one morning.

‘You go,’ said Claire.

‘No, we’ll both go. Come on. Get your shoes on.’

‘Oh Christ,’ said Claire, groping for her shoes but wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed, to be left alone. Josh was gone, what the hell use was anything else to her?

‘Don’t give me that,’ said Suki. ‘You think Josh would want you like this? He’d expect you to be strong, fearless, just like he was.’

‘You don’t know a damned thing about Josh,’ Claire burst out, hurling her shoes at her daughter. ‘How dare you tell me what he would want? He’s . . .’ Claire started crying. She shook with tears.