‘I don’t know. You have to take your chance on that sort of thing.’ He grinned. ‘Could have been back now if things had turned out differently last night.’

‘What do you mean?’ He told her about Doreen and what had happened at her flat. When he finished, Jenny shook her head. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

‘I could make a suggestion. Two and a half years is a hell of a long time.’

She examined him critically and frowned. ‘You know I hadn’t realized it before, but you could do with a damned good scrub. You’ll find a bathroom at the head of the stairs and there’s plenty of hot water. Go on. I’ll make you some breakfast while you’re in the tub.’

‘All right then, all right,’ he said good-humouredly as she pulled him to his feet and pushed him through the door.

But he wasn’t smiling when he went upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom. Two and a half years. The thought of it sent a wave of coldness through him, of sudden, abject despair. If only that stupid screw hadn’t decided to sneak off to the canteen. If only he hadn’t tried to touch up the staff nurse. But that was the trouble with life, wasn’t it? Just one big series of ifs.

He was just finishing dressing when she knocked on the door and said softly, ‘Come into my room when you’ve finished Gunner – it’s the next door. I’ve got clean clothes for you.’

When he went into her room she was standing at the end of the bed bending over a suit which she had laid out. ‘My father’s,’ she said. ‘Just about the right fit I should say.’

‘I can’t take that, darlin’,’ the Gunner told her. ‘If the coppers catch me in gear like that they’ll want to know where it came from.’

She stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘If I go back it’s got to be just the way I looked when I turned up here last night otherwise they’ll want to know where I’ve been and who’s been helping me.’

The room was strangely familiar and he looked around him and grinned. ‘You want to get a curtain for that window, darlin’. When I was in the loft last night I could see right in. Quite a view. One I’m not likely to forget in a hurry.’ He sighed and said in a whisper, ‘I wonder how many times I’ll think of that during the next two and a half years.’

‘Look at me, Gunner,’ she said softly.