The door was studded wood, dark and gnarly. Connie cut wildly at the weeds covering it, hacking and slashing until she managed to clear them. Dropping the secateurs, she rested one hand against the door and, with the other, reached for the rusting metal ring and twisted hard. The door resisted. She pushed her shoulder against the wood. It didn’t budge. Kenneth. She rolled her eyes and looked about for a key. How did he think anyone could possibly get through this door?

She reached up, fingers fumbling among the dips and crevices in the bricks, searching for a hiding place. As she did so, she heard male voices in the main part of the garden. Her skin prickled and she thrust the rose behind her back. Kenneth didn’t take kindly to theft. He was a born-again honest person, her father joked.

The voices grew louder, and the smell of cigarette smoke drifted on the air. Tiny flies buzzed around Connie’s face. Brushing them aside, she strained to hear the conversation.

‘Don’t be so fucking stupid. Why the hell would I do that?’

Connie froze. She’d never heard Kenneth swear. On the contrary, he considered it lazy and demeaning, a sign of poor intellect. ‘I may not have had the benefit of a good education,’ he would say, ‘but what I’ve taught myself is worth more than schooling ever could have done, and that’s dignity and self-respect.’

Well, he wasn’t being dignified now.

The man responded in a low, tense tone, too quiet to hear.

‘What are you saying, Frank? I’m loyal. You know that.’

More muttering. Connie leaned closer.

‘We agreed, didn’t we? No contact. What did you do, hire a bloody detective to find me?’ The voices faded as the men moved away.

Connie peered through the branches and caught a flash of navy blue as the stranger rounded the house. It was the man she’d just seen in the street. An acquaintance of Kenneth’s. No surprise judging from the look of him. An ex-con? She shivered remembering what her father had said about the gang member who’d been released from prison. Hadn’t his name been Frank?

Stepping from her hiding place and still grasping the rose, she walked quickly to the front of the house, planning to take her usual route to the church as she couldn’t unlock the arched door. But the men were talking on the pavement, which meant visiting her mother’s grave would have to wait. Hiding the rose, she nipped up the steps and into the sanctuary of the hall.

Music blared from Flat 2. She paused to listen to the Beatles singing about money and love. She would miss Eileen if she went back to America to star in a show. Even though they didn’t speak much, she felt like an ally.