‘“’E’s like a brother to me,” she sez, an’ I sez, never mind pretend brothers, why don’t we try an’ find my boys togevver? But she weren’t int’rested.’

‘Your boys?’

‘Me sons, me ovver kids. Yeah, I ’ad two more after ’er: one wiv Dez, an’ then later there wuz another one. Social Services took ’em off me, but I sez to ’er, wiv your money we could find ’em, gimme a bit, not much, I dunno, coupla grand, an’ I’ll try an’ get someone to find ’em, keep it quiet from the press, I’ll ’andle it, I’ll keep you out of it. But she weren’ interested,’ repeated Marlene.

‘Do you know where your sons are?’

‘They took ’em as babies, I dunno where they are now. I was havin’ problems. I ain’t gonna lie to ya, I’ve had a bloody hard life.’

And she told him, at length, about her hard life. It was a sordid story littered with violent men, with addiction and ignorance, neglect and poverty, and an animal instinct for survival that jettisoned babies in its wake, for they demanded skills that Marlene had never developed.

‘So you don’t know where your two sons are now?’ Strike repeated, twenty minutes later.

‘No, how the fuck could I?’ said Marlene, who had talked herself into bitterness. ‘She weren’ int’rested anyway. She already had a white brother, di’n’t she? She wuz after black family. That’s what she reely wanted.’

‘Did she ask you about her father?’

‘Yeah, an’ I told ’er ev’rything I knew. ’E was an African student. Lived upstairs from me, jus’ along the road ’ere, Barking Road, wiv two others. There’s the bookie’s downstairs now. Very good-looking boy. ’Elped me with me shopping a couple of times.’

To hear Marlene Higson tell it, the courtship had proceeded with an almost Victorian respectability; she and the African student seemed barely to have progressed past handshakes during the first months of their acquaintance.

‘And then, ’cos ’e’d ’elped me all them times, one day I asked ’im in, y’know, jus’ as a thank-you, really. I’m not a prejudiced person. Ev’ryone’s the same to me. Fancy a cuppa, I sez, that were all. And then,’ said Marlene, harsh reality clanging down amidst the vague impressions of teacups and doilies, ‘I finds out I’m expecting.’

‘Did you tell him?’

‘Oh yeah, an’ ’e was full of ’ow ’e was gonna ’elp, an’ shoulder ’is respons’bilities, an’ make sure I wuz all right. An’ then it was the college ’olidays. ’E said ’e was coming back,’ said Marlene, contemptuously. ‘Then ’e ran a mile. Don’t they all? And what was I gonna do, run off to Africa to find ’im?