‘It was Henry Dumas. I was going down the Old Kent Road, up by The Apples and Pears. You can put on a good bet in there without the hag of getting paid out with an hammer. I saw them together. Now what would them two want with one another? I thought. But I knew straight off. My Micky was a prat. He should have taken Bolger’s money and wasted the little shit. Never liked ponces, never. Dirty two-faced bastards, the majority. Whoring’s a woman’s game, the money’s too easy. Bad as my boys are, they don’t live off no tarts. You ladies know the game better than any man, I’ll bet. And you’ve got the muscle behind you.’

Ma Campbell listened to her husband and then turned on him viciously.

‘Hark at him! The bleeding oracle. By Christ, Da, you’ve sunk low before but, dear God, tonight you’ve sunk to the depths. Your son is sitting somewhere with that Arab bastard and you’re telling this pair of whores what they wanna know!’ Her voice was drenched with tears. Micky was her first-born, her baby. She knew he would never walk in her house again, never be there when she woke up, never speak to her again, and it broke her heart. Mariah patted her shoulder gently.

‘Don’t you touch me! I’ll never forgive you for the news you brought here tonight. My boy’s dead. My beautiful boy ...’

Briony stared at the woman before her, at the tears bubbling out from underneath her closed lids, and felt a stirring of pity inside her. If her son was to die, was to die in fear and terror, without her near to try and help, to try and protect him, she would feel the same as this old woman before her. As bad as Ma Campbell was, and God himself knew she was a vicious woman, she loved her children. She had robbed, schemed and threatened to give her boys what she considered a good life. That meant plenty to eat, good clean clothes on their backs, and shoes or boots on their feet. Unless you were born as low as them, you couldn’t understand in a million years what an achievement that was.

‘You’ll see me other boys come home, won’t you now?’

Briony nodded at the man, who bit his lip and half smiled. ‘Then there’s nothing to do now but wait for the body to turn up.’

Mariah touched Briony’s arm and silently the two women left the house, the only sound the heart-wrenching sobbing of Ma Campbell, which followed them out into the night.