‘So,’ she said, and laughed. ‘Just we three.’ They smiled, uncertainly. She was thin, as a woman who smokes instead of eats must be thin, and pallid, and her left cheek bore the yellow traces of an old bruise. She once was a beauty – a long, long time ago now. The blue seersucker blouse she was wearing was inside out, and the labels showed on the side seam and at the collar. She shivered in the cold room, and Peter poured her a mug of tea, which she took from him silently and held in two hands against her chest but didn’t drink.

‘Did Martin find you?’ Alison asked. ‘He came here, looking.’

Catherine rolled her eyes, put down the mug and pulled a squashed packet of Benson & Hedges out of the waistband of her skirt.

‘I wish he didn’t have a key,’ Alison said.

Peter shook his head. ‘No, he shouldn’t have a key, Catherine. He comes here, mouthing off, shouting the odds.’

‘Oh, he’s harmless,’ Catherine said, flapping a hand. ‘All mouth, no trousers. Find me a match, love.’

She said this to Alison, who stood up at once to get the matchbox from the back of the stove. She clutched at moments such as these, when her mother was lucid and sober. If she could keep her talking, light her cigarette, make her smile … She struck a match and held the flame to the end of Catherine’s cigarette.

‘Ta,’ her mother said. She took a long, shuddering drag and released the smoke through her nostrils. ‘Christ Almighty,’ she said. ‘Where would I be without my ciggies?’

‘So, did he find you?’ Alison asked again.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ Catherine said. She looked at Peter. ‘He found you as well, he said.’

Peter looked at her. ‘What?’

‘You and Toddy, walking down Darnall Road.’

He held her gaze, but shifted in his seat and swallowed. She regarded him narrowly, her cigarette poised at her lips. ‘You walked right past him, and never saw him.’

‘He could’ve said summat,’ Peter said. ‘Why dint he say summat?’

Catherine shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ she said.

‘I hate the bastard.’

‘Yes,’ Catherine said. ‘I know you do. He knows it, an’ all.’

Alison watched her brother’s face. If only he’d look at her. But he didn’t look. He wouldn’t.

Catherine smoked for a while, wordless, then she said, ‘If I were you, Peter, I’d be civil to Martin. Makes life less difficult.’

A silence hovered between the two of them that Alison couldn’t interpret, then Catherine stood up. ‘God, I need a drink,’ she said, and she started flinging open the cupboard doors then banging them shut, searching for a bottle. Alison shot Peter a look of despair and Catherine, catching her, said, ‘Oi, Goody Two Shoes, where’d you hide my vodka?’

‘It was me,’ Peter said, at once. ‘I hid it.’