But that was the trouble, she never did think. Tommy had been there for a long time, she had thought he always would be. She had not realised you had to keep people. She collected people like others collected luggage, and kept them with the minimum of trouble. Her family, for example. But Tommy had needed more and she had been too wrapped up in herself to notice that. She sighed heavily. If Tommy truly abandoned her now, she was back where she started: a madam, a club owner, nothing more and nothing less. If Tommy wasn’t there she would look after herself.

She placed the photograph back on the mantle, picking up the one of Benedict. He was grinning. Dressed in a dark suit, he leant against a pillar. It was a good photo, had caught his laughter. Sally had taken him to have it done, telling him it was for herself. He thought Sally looked at it in her room, never contemplating the fact it could be for someone else.

Her face broke into a small smile. Ben looked like her. Even in the sepia-coloured photo where you couldn’t see the green of his eyes or the red tinge to his hair, he was wholly her child.

She felt the familiar tug of him, the need of him, inside herself. Replacing the photograph carefully, she walked from the room. She had to go to her mother’s today. Another crisis in the family was beckoning. Sometimes she wished they’d all disappear down a big hole and leave her alone. She wasn’t in the mood for trouble, she had enough of her own. But no one was to know that, of course. Briony had to be strong, morning, noon and night. It was the law of the Cavanaghs, and she wished with all her heart she hadn’t been the instigator of that law.

Molly waited in Eileen’s kitchen for Briony. She had left word for her to go straight there, threatening Mother Jones with death, pain, torture and destruction if she made her a cup of tea and delayed her. Elizabeth O’Malley sat wide-eyed, staring into the fire, her face swelling where Eileen had smacked her in the eye.

‘Briony was coming to see me today anyway, I was going to tell her that Eileen wasn’t right. I blame you and that son of yours, you bitch of hell! Torturing the poor girl out of her mind!’

Elizabeth O’Malley shook her head slowly.

‘That girl is as mad as a March hare, you know that in your heart. You were here, you saw what happened. She attacked me for no reason at all. I only came to see how she was.’

Molly made a grunting noise of disbelief.