‘It’s yours. You were wearing it when you were left by your mother. It was too big for you then, and it must have slipped off. It wasn’t found until after you’d gone away to start your new life. I’ve kept it all these years in the hope that one day I might be able to return it to you personally.’

Billie picked up the bracelet and inspected it closely.

‘So she gave me my name? It was my birth mother who called me Billie?’

‘It would seem so. I’m sorry to be vague, but I made a promise many years ago and I’m a woman of my word. I agreed that I would tell you as much as I am permitted, and that I would give you the money and what’s in this envelope. But the most important part of my promise concerned the things that I can’t reveal, however much I might want to. That’s not to say that you couldn’t find out in other ways, but that’s up to you.’

‘What’s in the envelope?’

Madame Burova pulled out a photograph and placed it in front of Billie.

‘Your father is one of the men in this picture.’

The photograph was a group shot of men and women standing on stage in the entertainment lounge of Larkins Holiday Park and the caption read ‘Larkins Entertainment Staff 1973’. In the centre of the photograph, smiling directly at the camera, was Cillian Byrne.

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Now

‘Nice hat!’ shrieked one of a gaggle of young women tottering along the promenade dressed in pink PVC mini-dresses, feather boas and flashing tiaras. The bride-to-be was easily identifiable by her silver sequinned L-plates and was grappling with a giant inflatable penis that was in danger of being wrenched from her grasp by a feral wind whipping in from the sea.

‘They’ll catch their deaths,’ Billie lamented to Madame Burova. ‘Not a coat or cardigan between them, and I’ll bet their underwear barely covers the essentials. And now I sound exactly like my mother. Well – one of them.’