His hands were like shovels, his shoulders broad and muscular. He was nearly fifty-five years old. There was nothing anyone could tell Paddy about the running of a building site. He had come to England in the early 1950s, established himself in Kilburn, reared a family and lost his wife to cancer, all the while working on different sites around the country. The only thing in his life that had stayed the same was the Irish Post, even though he only bought it these days for the obituaries.

He had offered a tearful Donna his expertise along with Mario’s, and she had gratefully accepted. Now he told her exactly what to say, and what not to say on the sites. If the site manager didn’t give her what Paddy called ‘her due’, then Paddy would make it quite plain that they would answer to him. Mark Hancock was the first to find this out and now, seething with indignation, he was once more trying to pacify not only Donna Brunos, a bitch of a woman, but also Big Paddy Donovon, ex-fistfighter and champion of anyone smaller than him - which in Mark’s estimation took in ninety-five percent of the population.

‘The damp course is up, we’re starting the bricklaying in the next two days, the plasterers will be in afterwards. I don’t know what else I can tell you.’

‘How about where the money’s gone? Also who the fecking eejit was who ordered the cement.’

Mark felt himself come over faint. Paddy’s voice was low, but the menace in it was evident nonetheless.

Donna picked up a file to disguise the shaking of her hands. She fiddled with the papers inside while she waited for Hancock to answer.

‘Look, Mr Hancock . . .’ Her voice was shaking along with her whole body and she swallowed deeply before going on. ‘My husband has handed over the running of all his businesses to me. I really need to have these questions answered. The fact that the cement has already been paid for, and that three hundred yards has gone astray, is obviously of paramount importance.’

Mark Hancock wiped a dirty hand across his face. ‘It’s the perk of the job normally that cement would go to another site, but as it didn’t, I sold it off myself.’