Billie remembered the photograph. Of course they had. Stupid question. The fat, sassy opening notes of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ interrupted her train of thought for a moment. This track always made her want to dance.

‘There’ll be dancing later,’ Imelda told her, as though she had read her thoughts. Or maybe she had just noticed that Billie was unable to keep her shoulders still. Their tapas supper was delicious, although Mabel was largely unimpressed and had only deigned to try a morsel of chorizo, which she had then pushed out of the side of her mouth with her tongue. The tables were cleared and moved out to the sides of the room to create a space for a rather intimate dance floor. The patrons of The Tea Leaf were, however, an uninhibited or perhaps slightly inebriated bunch, and the floor was quickly filled.

Billie’s thoughts returned to their earlier conversation. She didn’t want to push Imelda too hard on the first night, but the café had such a tangible connection to the past that she was trying to uncover, that she allowed herself a couple more questions.

‘What happened to Ruby? Is she still around? Do you think she’d be willing to talk to me about Cillian and the others?’

Imelda cupped her ear to try and make out what Billie was saying above the music, which was louder now that the dancing had begun. She shook her head.

‘Sadly, she died. Three years ago now. She had a stroke. Such a shame. She was a lovely woman.’

Billie sat watching the dancers who were lost in the music and one another’s arms. It felt somehow voyeuristic to be merely a spectator instead of a participant. She wondered if there had ever been a jukebox in the café, and if the staff from Larkins had danced with each other here. If Cillian had danced here.

Eventually the music faded, and people began draining their glasses and gathering their things. As Billie stood up to retrieve her coat, it was whisked from the back of her chair and held aloft.

‘Allow me.’

The DJ had emerged from the shadows and was standing behind her. He was a well-built man of mixed race, in his late fifties perhaps, with astonishing aquamarine eyes. Having helped Billie into her coat he turned to Imelda, threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly. Imelda pinched his cheeks affectionately.

‘Billie – meet Treasure. Ruby’s son.’

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Now

Imelda lay in bed too exhausted to sleep. The tears in her eyes blurred the pristine sphere of a mother-of-pearl moon suspended in the black rectangle of sky revealed by the gap between the curtains. Mabel puffed and grunted contentedly as she snuggled in closer, tucking her head under Imelda’s chin. Her paws twitched and her eyelids flickered; a dream her puppeteer.