The garden had gone to seed since Raymond last visited this place – but three years could transform a world many times over. The truth was, it had first fallen on hard times much longer ago. When Raymond was a younger man, this garden had been a highlight of the terrace. His father had green fingers and the sunflowers Raymond himself had helped sow could grow as tall as your head. Raymond still remembered how proud his father had been of those flowers. But then had come that terrible year of 1929 . . .

The Depression might have caused panic for those in their city homes, who went to work in their suits and ties, but it was people like the Cohens who really suffered. All across the East End, gardens were upended, new vegetable patches created as people determined to survive. Now, the vegetable patch that had once been his father’s pride and joy – and the family’s salvation – was a wasteland of fallen masonry, knee-high grass, thistles and the chicken coop, patched up so often to keep the foxes out that it now looked like a fortress. The last of the day’s sun was spilling over the chimney stacks of the houses that backed on to this. Somewhere, somebody was bawling at their loved one; the voice flurried up and filled the air between the houses.

‘So,’ his mother said, calling out through the kitchen window as Raymond knelt down to tempt one of the marauding chickens with a seed, ‘you got our message, did you?’

Raymond’s eyes darted up at the upper storey of the red brick house. Is he up there? he thought. My brother? He looked for the net curtains twitching; if he was being watched by that errant brother of his, there was no sign. But then Artie Cohen was a secretive sort. It was secrets that had divided them, in the end. Secrets which had kept Raymond away from home, living a second life, for such a long time.

‘You’re as crafty as you ever were, Ma. You might have sent a letter.’

‘Up to that hotel o’ yours? And risk some post boy opening it up and spilling your precious secret? No, Ray. You mightn’t think much about us these days, but I wouldn’t do that to you. I know how ashamed you is . . .’

Raymond tried to ignore the attack. She was goading him to say something, just so she could start a fight, but he was determined to rise above it. ‘Who is she, this Mrs Adelman?’

‘She’s a lady.’

Raymond shook his head. His mother was as vexing as ever. ‘This much I understood.’