‘I always did cut too easily,’ the Gunner said. ‘If it hadn’t been for that I could have gone right to the top. The Boxing Board took my licence away after the Terry Jones fight on medical advice. Just a vale of tears, isn’t it?’

He looked anything but depressed sitting there at the table wearing an old sweater the girl had found him and a pair of boots that had belonged to her father. He had already worked his way through three fried eggs, several rashers of bacon and half a loaf of bread and was now on his third cup of tea.

‘You’re a funny one and no mistake.’ Jenny Crowther shook her head. ‘Doesn’t anything ever worry you?’

‘Life’s too short, darlin’.’ He helped himself to a cigarette from the old woman’s packet. ‘I shared a cell once with a bloke who was big on this yoga lark. You’ve got to learn to relaxez-vous. Live for today and use the talents the good Lord’s given you.’

Jenny laughed helplessly. ‘I think that’s marvellous. Considering the way you make a living.’

He wasn’t in the least embarrassed. ‘So I scrounge a few bob where I can. The kind of people I hit can afford it. Insured up to the hilt they are. I don’t go around duffing up old women in back street shops.’

‘The original Robin Hood,’ she said acidly. ‘And what happens when someone gets in your way on a job? Do you go quietly or try to smash your way through?’

She piled the dirty dishes on to a tray and went into the kitchen. The Gunner moved across to the fire and sat in the opposite chair to the old woman. ‘Is she always as sharp as that?’

‘She has to be, lad, running an outfit like this.’

‘You mean she’s in charge?’

‘Her dad passed on a couple of months back – cerebral haemorrhage. Jenny was a hairdresser, a good one too, but she dropped that and took over here. Been trying to keep things going ever since.’

‘Having trouble, then?’

‘Only what you’d expect. We’ve eight drivers and two mechanics and there isn’t one who wouldn’t take advantage if he could. And then there’s the foreman, Joe Ogden. He’s the worst of the lot. He’s shop steward for the union. Always quoting the book at her, making things as difficult as he can.’

‘And why would he do that?’

‘You’ve seen her, haven’t you?’ She poured herself another whisky. ‘What about you? Where do you go from here?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Ma. If I can get to the Ring Road I could snatch a lift to any one of a dozen places.’