She looked at Ray’s clothes in the wardrobe, at his shirts that she had washed and ironed and hung there ready for him whenever he needed them. She used to worry that she had too much, and that it couldn’t last. That, somehow, everything had to be paid for. Now she knew that it wasn’t fanciful thinking or her Catholic guilt at having so much when others had so little. God, at times, did pay back debts without money.

Now it was Ray’s turn to pay and she hoped he paid out well. She’d had two men in her life, and neither had been what they had seemed. She had been fool enough to fall for them and love them and give them children. So what the fuck did that say about her?

She went downstairs to wait for the phone to ring. When the call came, she listened to the person at the other end without a word before she dressed carefully in jeans, a T-shirt and a cheap jacket. Then, smiling, she got into her car and drove away from her house with a calmness she had not felt for years. In fact, she felt as if she had been released from something that had been dragging her down and would have eventually been the death of her. She was playing The Eagles, ‘Hotel California’, and she felt lighter than ever before. She was in a wonderful mood when she reached her destination.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Seven

Ray Donovan turned up at Jack’s yard. It seemed that Elton had come up trumps and brought Barton there to await his punishment. And what a punishment it was going to be. Ray was demented at the thought of his friend with his daughter – his extremely young daughter – who he now felt was sullied and dirty. He would never feel the same about her again. She had been his sunshine, his happiness. Now she was putrid, filthy to him.

He had loved her, given her the world on a fucking plate, and what had the little whore done? She had humiliated him, of all people. He was so angry he knew that he would not be responsible for his actions. He had even thought about removing his Kathy from this earth, such was his anger at what she had done to him – Ray Donovan, the man of the fucking hour! How Barton must have laughed at him behind his back, the black fucker must have thought he had got away with it. Well, no one humiliated Ray Donovan and lived to tell the tale.