What Angel imagined going on inside that house was so different to life back at the flat. At the flat there were fierce arguments, and Dora sprawled on the sofa, passed out with the drink, and crocks piling up in the kitchen, flies gathering around the bin, stacks of unwashed clothes dumped on work surfaces, beds unmade.

But here, where Donny really lived, there would be order and sweetness. Angel just knew it. And it fascinated her. She coveted this life. Couldn’t stop herself from coming here and stepping ever closer. Going up to the gate, looking up the path. Seeing the pristine nets at the gleaming bay windows.

This time, as she stood there, so near and yet so far from that other world, she saw the nets at the window twitch. Her heart leaping into her mouth, she stepped back. But then the front door opened and it was her – the woman, his wife, wearing a frilled yellow apron over her skirt, and staring curiously at Angel.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, and her voice was nice; medium-range, not shrieky in the least. Not like Dora’s. Dora’s was rough these days, like fingernails down a blackboard, made harsh by drink.

Angel said nothing. She’d come too close; she’d stand further away next time.

The woman was watching her with anxious blue eyes. She was pretty, middle-class, respectable. But as she gazed at Angel, her chin came out and her mouth hardened into a tight line.

‘You’re not . . . ?’ she started, then stopped.

Angel was staring right back at her, unable to speak. How could she explain what she was doing there? She couldn’t.

Then the woman’s eyes grew cold. ‘You’re not one of his women, are you?’ she snapped out. ‘You’re not one of those?’

Angel didn’t answer. She turned and ran, all the way back to the Tube, and rode across town, her mind whirling. One of his women.

So his wife knew that there were other women. Women, plural. But there was only Dora, wasn’t there? Or were there others? Had there been others in the past? By the time she let herself into the flat, Angel’s heart was pounding and she was flushed with guilt. She had to stop going there. What good did it do?

‘Hello, love,’ said Dora from the couch.

She was drunk again. Her words were slurred. Her movements were unsteady. The place was a tip, as usual. Angel went in, dumping her satchel, and bent to kiss her mum on the cheek.

‘Hi, Mum,’ she said.

‘Been to school like a good girl,’ said Dora, her eyes closed. She reached for her glass of gin, spilling some on the couch. She drank, opened her eyes, stared at Angel. ‘Good girl, aintcha, Angel?’ she said.

‘Shall I get you something to eat?’ said Angel, thinking she’d cook something, mop up some of that booze Dora’d been shoving down her throat again.

‘You’re such a good girl,’ Dora was meandering on, but her gaze was hostile now. ‘Donny thinks the world of you, Angel, you know that, don’t you?’