Okay, he shouldn’t get carried away. He couldn’t put Cora on too much of a pedestal – she’d been a stripper, after all – but, having hooked up with her again all these years later, he’d found that she’d indeed become that upstanding citizen, that conscientious working mum who paid her taxes, who had friends that weren’t delinquents, who added genuine value to her community. She still looked terrific as well. She’d aged, obviously, but Cora clearly looked after herself, a habit she evidently shared with her daughter. And she still possessed that indomitable, rebellious spirit.

‘There must be some reason why you’d send me a pile of flowers,’ she persisted, refusing to be fobbed off. ‘From most blokes it would be a loving gesture, but I know you, Frank … and so does Lucy, and neither of us think it can be anything of the sort. So, I ask you again: what are you up to?’

‘Cora, I …’

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Frank McCracken was tongue-tied.

It was a staggering possibility, but could he actually be falling for this woman? All over again? It was difficult to imagine, with Charlie at home, the ultimate temptress, ‘Sex on Legs’ as the other lads called her. But Charlie was simply the best of a long line of hot ladies who’d warmed his sheets over the years and hadn’t served much other purpose. Cora had been a lot more to him than that.

‘That’s it?’ she said. ‘That’s all the answer I get? You finally deign to take my call, and then you’ve got nothing to say.’

‘Cora, listen … just accept it for what it is. A birthday gift, yeah?’

‘But what does it actually mean, Frank?’ Her voice had changed slightly, the tone softening; there was almost a plea there. And now he couldn’t help wondering how she felt about him. ‘Give me something, Frank. Anything. So, I’m not left confused and worried by this.’

Perhaps she’d been lonely too these last thirty years.

Fuck. There it was. He’d just admitted it to himself. For all the drinking and gambling, for all the women who’d jump into bed at a click of his fingers, he was lonely.

‘Frank, talk to me!’

‘Cora, listen. We are old friends, you’re right. More than that, in truth. Now, I’d like us to be new friends. But you know that can’t happen under the current circumstances.’

‘So, the flowers were … what?’

‘Like I say, accept them as a gift.’

‘Lucy wants me to throw them away.’

He snorted. ‘The Cora I knew and lov—’ He corrected himself. ‘The Cora I knew so well would have made her own decision about that.’

There was a breathless pause at the other end of the line.