‘So someone’s framing him?’

Stephen held his hand over his mouth and shook his head.

‘Look, Stephen, there’s no one here. Nobody will hear you. Anything you tell me …’

‘Will be treated in the strictest confidence. Yes. I’m sure. But you don’t know what they’re like.’

‘Who? The police?’

‘Them as well.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’

‘Don’t shout, dear, and stop striding around in that masculine way. You’re upsetting me.’

I sat down, and he hooked me with his legs again. My chest heaved, and tears started pouring out of my eyes.

‘There there,’ said Stephen. ‘Crying won’t help.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. The man you love isn’t in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.’

Stephen slowly withdrew his feet, and sat upright.

‘The man I love.’ He hummed a few bars of Gershwin. ‘Someday he’ll come along, the man I love, and he’ll be big and strong …’

I stopped crying and lit a cigarette.

‘Do you remember that night at Reville, Michael? When I flew the coop?’

‘I’m not likely to forget it.’

‘Did you ever wonder what was going on in my pretty little head when I lured you into my improvised boudoir?’

‘It was pretty obvious, Stephen. You wanted to get out.’

‘Mmm …’ He stared towards the window. ‘Among other things.’

I opened my mouth, and closed it again.

‘Was that the sound of a penny dropping, dear?’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you remember when I showed you that drawing I’d done, and I said that I drew what I saw in here?’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Well, that was always my trouble, you see, ever since I was little. An overactive imagination. I had it all worked out, you know. You’d sink into my arms and taste my womanly charms, and we’d get busted and sent to the loony bin together but somehow love would triumph over adversity and we’d troll into the sunset, hand in hand.’ He blew out a long grey stream of smoke. ‘Daft, isn’t it? I never was your type. You like ’em butch.’

‘I see.’

‘You do? Well fuck me. You took your time.’

A lorry rumbled past, rattling the window frame.

‘I’m sorry, Stephen.’

‘What for?’

‘I must have caused you a lot of pain.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself, Hot Stuff.’ He leaned against me. ‘Now do me a favour, and leave now.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I think I’m about to do something very stupid.’

‘What?’

‘Darling, put your arms around me. Just for once. Hold me. Let me think that this is worthwhile. Just for ten minutes or so. That’s all it’ll take.’

And so I held Stephen in my arms on that dirty old sofa, the Vauxhall traffic circulating around us, as he gave me the answers to the questions I had never even thought to ask.

‘I met Tony the first week I got to London after they let me out of Halton. He picked me up in Leicester Square and took me to a flat on Tottenham Court Road and fucked me so hard that I was bandy. Well, it was just what the doctor ordered, wasn’t it, after all the frustrations and the disappointments and the bromide in the tea. He was dark-haired and handsome in a rather cruel sort of way – made me weak at the knees. Well I was on them often enough. I fell in love, and I thought he felt the same way. You know how stupid I am. But he set me up in that flat in Queensway, and he got me a job on Muscle Boy, and he was always popping round in the middle of the day or the middle of the night wanting his oats, saying he was going to leave his wife, and mug that I was I believed him.