‘What about Mona Freeman?’ Miller said. ‘He was going to marry her.’

‘She was a mug if she believed him.’ Brady shook his head. ‘She’s still in Holloway. Conspiracy to defraud last year.’

‘All right then,’ Miller said. ‘Get out the street directory and let’s take a look at the map. Something might click while you’re looking at it.’

Brady had grown old on the streets of the city and had developed an extraordinary memory for places and faces, the minutiae of city life. Now he unfolded the map at the back of his pocket directory and examined the area around the Infirmary. He gave a sudden grunt. ‘Doreen Monaghan.’

‘I remember her,’ Miller said. ‘Little Irish girl of seventeen just over from the bogs. She thought the sun shone out of the Gunner’s backside.’

‘Well, she isn’t seventeen any longer,’ Brady said. ‘Has a flat in a house in Jubilee Terrace less than a quarter of a mile from here. Been on the game just over a year now.’

‘Let’s go then.’ Miller grinned. ‘And don’t forget that right of his whatever happens. He’s only got to connect once and you won’t wake up till next Friday.’

5

When the Gunner hurried across the courtyard and turned into the side street at the rear of the Infirmary, he hadn’t the slightest idea what he was going to do next. Certainly he had no particular destination in mind although the icy coldness of the wet flags beneath his bare feet told him that he’d better find one quickly.

The rain was hammering down now which at least kept the streets clear and he paused on a corner to consider his next move. The sign above his head read Jubilee Street and triggered off a memory process that finally brought him to Doreen Monaghan who at one time had worshipped the ground he walked on. She’d written regularly during the first six months of his sentence when he was at Pentonville, but then the letters had tailed off and gradually faded away. The important thing was that she lived at 15 Jubilee Terrace and might still be there.

He kept to the back streets to avoid company and arrived at his destination ten minutes later, a tall, decaying Victorian town house in a twilight area where a flat was high living and most families managed on one room.

The fence had long since disappeared and the garden was a wilderness of weeds and brambles, the privet hedge so tall that the weight of the heavy rain bowed it over. He paused for a moment and looked up. Doreen had had the top floor flat stretching from the front of the house to the rear and light showed dimly through a gap in the curtains which was encouraging.