‘Everything is fine,’ he said breezily. It was typical Pete – he wouldn’t want to make a fuss or have a drama all about him. It occurred to Liv that his personality was the complete opposite of Barbara Quirke’s. As long as she’d known him, he’d never been the one in need of any sort of help or support. He’d given freely over the years, whether it was taking turns with her at Rachel’s bedside or hauling heavy furniture up the three flights of stairs to her flat or picking her up from town because her shopping bags were heavy and it started to rain.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Liv asked, double, triple checking, but then, she realised, perhaps it was different for men; after all, Pete didn’t have a biological clock ticking inside him so loudly he felt as if he was counting down the final minutes to an atomic bomb. For Pete it was just a relationship that didn’t work out; if the shoe was on the other foot, for Liv it would be the end of the world, or at least that’s what she thought it would be, so she cleared the awful idea from her mind quickly.

‘Sure, everything is fine. It had run its course; it was time to move on for both of us, obviously. It’s just a little depressing that Anya would do something like that behind my back, but I think it says more about her and, really, why I was having doubts about her to begin with.’

‘I’m just glad that you’re okay, but if there’s anything I can do, you just need to let me know, okay?’ Liv said, and she knew she had to stop worrying about him.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘We’ll meet up for coffee when you get back?’ he said but she had a feeling that he was only pacifying her; otherwise, he knew only too well.

She put the phone down, thinking she’d far prefer to go for coffee with Pete than have to show up at Flannelly’s pub. She thought about it now and it was bloody miserable. She actually dreaded the journey down, the too-loud music and the smell of all-day drinking, and for what? To make sure that Eddie got home in one piece. She’d much prefer to be at home in her snuggly pyjamas and padding off to bed when it suited her. She was glad that she’d decided against going earlier now.

It was nine-thirty when the call came.