‘To think you would have been a part of them! You’re well out of it, son. You’re a young man with your whole life in front of you. There’s plenty of girls who’d be grateful to you for taking them on.’

‘Mother, I’m thirty-eight years old. Hardly a boy. And in case it’s escaped your notice there hasn’t exactly been a stream of women beating a path to my door.’

‘Men are fools! They shouldn’t marry ’til they’re in their forties. Even then they have to be careful. A pretty face can hide a multitude of sins, you know. You have to look at the stock they come from. If that Briony Cavanagh comes around here shouting her mouth off, I’ll fill it for her meself. I’m not scared of her, or any of them for that matter. Let them come and see what I’m capable of! My son will marry who he bloody well wants and it won’t be a Cavanagh. Over my dead body! You hear me, over my dead body!’

Elizabeth O‘Malley was in full swing when Briony walked in at the back door of the tiny terraced house in Longbridge Road. She stood in the scullery for a few seconds before she made herself known. As she stepped into the kitchen Elizabeth O’Malley nearly jumped from her skin in fright. Holding her hand over her mouth, she whispered: ‘Jesus cross of Christ!’

Briony smiled widely.

‘I take it you wasn’t expecting me then? Well, you should have been. You should have been sitting here with locked doors pretending you was out like I was the tally man coming for me money. Only unlike the tally man, the chances are if I don’t hear what I want to hear, I’ll break your fucking necks! Starting with you first, Mrs O’Malley.’

Joshua stared at the little woman in awe.

‘Shut your mouth, Joshua. You look like you should be on a slab at Billingsgate market. What’s this I hear about you dumping me sister after promising to marry her?’

Joshua just stared at the apparition in front of him.

‘What my sister sees in you I don’t even pretend to know, Joshua. But she wants you so she’s going to have you, see. Because you strung her along, you asked her to marry you, and now I’ll see to it personally that you do. You are going to get washed and spruced up, you’re going round my mother’s at seven-thirty tonight, and you’re going to tell Eileen all that old fanny you gave her was just wedding nerves. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’

Joshua nodded.

‘And you’re going to do what I say?’

He nodded again.