There was a cutting edge to her voice that needled the Gunner and he said hotly, ‘Well just for the record, darlin’, there’s a few things they’ve missed out like the way I cut so badly that refs used to stop fights I was winning because they’d get worried about the blood pouring all over my face. In that last fight with Terry Jones I got cut so much I was two weeks in hospital. I even needed plastic surgery. They took my licence away so I couldn’t box any more. Any idea how I felt?’

‘Maybe it was rough, Gunner, life often is, but it didn’t give you a licence to steal.’

‘Nay, lass, I don’t need any excuses.’ He grinned. ‘I had a few sessions with a psychiatrist at the Scrubs first time I got nicked. He tried to make out that I’d gone bent to get my own back on society.’

‘What’s your version?’

‘Chance, darlin’, time and chance, that’s what happened to me. When the fight game gave me up I’d about two hundred quid in the bank and I was qualified to be just one thing. A bloody labourer. Anything seemed better than that.’

‘So you decided to try crime?’

‘Not really. It just sort of happened. I was staying in the Hallmark Hotel in Manchester, trying to keep up appearances while I tried to con my way into a partnership with a bloke I knew who was running a gambling club. When the deal folded, I was so broke I couldn’t even pay the bill. One night I noticed a bloke in the bar with a wallet full of fivers. Big bookie in from the races.’

He stared into the fire, silent for a moment and as he started to speak again, she realized that in some strange way he was re-living that night in every detail.

‘He was staying on the same floor as me five rooms along. There was a ledge outside my window, only about a foot wide mind you, but it was enough. I’ve always had a head for heights ever since I was a kid, always loved climbing. I don’t know, maybe if things had been different I might have been a real climber. North face of the Eiger and all that sort of stuff. Those are the blokes with the real guts.’

‘What happened?’ she said.

‘I worked my way along the ledge at about two in the morning, got in through his window and lifted the wallet and him snoring the whole time.’

‘And you got away with it?’