‘He’s like the Godfather, isn’t he?’ Clio said, as they had a cup of tea together in the chippy. ‘I’ve hitched my wagon to a Mafia don. Go on, Neil, you can tell me.’

Say something, he told himself. You need to actually talk to her.

‘Honestly? I thought so too when I first met him. But then I looked into it, and I realized, he’s just a very, very community-minded good guy.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, pulling a face. ‘That’s what I was afraid of.’

Neil grinned at the sacrilege, began to relax a little.

‘I mean, don’t get me wrong. He’s got his eye on the prize, likes –’

She puffed her cheeks, blew out a gust, warm on his face. ‘Tell me about it. He’ll be Councillor Duke before the ballot’s even counted. Right now I reckon the only problem he’s going to have is that nobody will be looking for the name Gordon on the paper …’

‘Do you mind me asking how you met him? It’s just, you seem so—’

He didn’t know, in that second, what she seemed. She waited a grace note to see if he would finish.

‘Politics, politics. What else would it be? With this one? I went along to a poll tax meeting in Glasgow. He was one of the speakers, and of course, being Gogsy, he blew the rest of them away. I asked him a question afterwards; he asked me for a drink, course he did. I was dropping out of college, staying in a crappy hostel at the time, and he suggested I move in with him after something like two dates. So it goes.’

‘So, you’re into all this stuff? All the Marxist theory, all the left-wing – it’s not … you know.’

She did a laugh like something out of the movies. ‘You saying that because I’m a girl? Honey, I was born to this stuff. I was singing “The Red Flag” while you were still stumbling over “Baa Baa Black Sheep”.’

‘That’s not – not what I meant.’ It had been what he’d meant. She tapped her CAN’T PAY, WON’T PAY badge.

‘It’s all important, this. And Gogs, he knows why. I wasn’t just a wee runaway in need of a home, you know. Well, I was, but still. I could tell Gogs was trying to do something here. He spoke about what he’d been trying to do with all the unemployed men in this community, and I thought, that sounds like the sort of place I could be. He’s gonny be a great man, is Gordon Duke. Save a lot of lives. I mean it.’