She got out of her Lada and slammed the door. The car was full of rubbish - old ice-cream wrappers from the grandchildren, and cigarette ends overflowing from the ashtrays. It was tatty, rusting, and she loved it. Georgio had hated her driving it, offering to buy her a new car. She had always got a wicked pleasure from screeching up his drive in it. The pleasure was gone now, gone with Georgio.

Slinging her worn leather bag on to her shoulder, Maeve crunched across the gravel, past the garage block towards the front door. Dolly was waiting for her and the two women embraced.

‘Hello, Dolly love, where’s your woman?’

Dolly’s face crinkled into a smile. ‘She’ll be in soon. I told her you were coming. I made us a nice casserole.’

They wandered through to the kitchen and the appetising smell made Maeve’s mouth water. Like most cooks, any food presented to her that she had not had to prepare was like ambrosia. Also, she grudgingly admitted, Dolly could cook.

‘How is she, Dolly?’

‘She seems better now. When he was first sentenced she was terrible, God love her. But this last couple of weeks, she’s picked up quite a bit. She works in the car lot during the day, though she has been seeing the fella who’s running the building sites. Everyone’s had word from Georgio to humour her. That’s the expression he used, Carol told me. But she seems all right. If it gets her out and about, then it can only be a good thing.’

Maeve nodded. ‘He’s me son and I love him, but Dolly, he never deserved that girl. Humour her, my eye! And him stuck in Parkhurst like a big galoot. He told Mario not to let on to her about too much. The girl’s a fool where my son is concerned. If he’s so clever, what’s he doing rotting in that prison, I ask meself?’

Dolly didn’t answer, just carried on making the tea. Maeve needed to sound off about Georgio and the only place she could do so in peace was here, provided her daughter-in-law was out.

‘You know it’s a terrible thing to say, and if my old man heard me he’d go mad, but I’m not so sure my Georgio was as innocent as he said. Over the years he came along in leaps and bounds, and even though the police could prove nothing much, I still feel in me gut there was more to it all than anyone knows or guesses. Donna told me the other day that this house was in her name. Solely in her name. Now why would he have done that? That’s the puzzler. And she had known nothing about it! He gave her papers to sign and she signed them. She said that’s how it had always been.’