The compassionate tone of Lil’s voice and her concerned embrace nearly did for Angel. After the horrible tension of the past couple of days it was all she could do not to break down. Tears flooded her eyes and she irritably swiped them away.

‘I’m OK,’ she said.

She couldn’t escape the feeling that all this was her fault, and she didn’t deserve her aunt’s kindness. But then – Lil had never been anything but kind to her. And now Angel felt a warmth toward her aunt that surprised her. She’d always said fuck the family, they’d shunned her mother and so she would shun them. But now . . . the truth was, she really liked Aunt Lil. Even that misery Aunt June was not too bad. One day they might actually hold a decent conversation, really talk to each other. And Tom? She adored her cousin, loved him like a brother. She really did. It was sobering – shocking, really – to think that after all these years of slogging on alone, she had a family around her now, one that actually did care about her.

‘Can I see him?’ asked Angel.

Lil smoothed her niece’s cheek. ‘Of course you can. Come on.’

143

While Angel was visiting Tom in hospital, DI Cory Farmer was standing at the door of the flat Angel shared with Tom, waiting patiently for her to open it. Paddy was downstairs, parking the car. Nowhere to park around here, it was a rat hole. So Paddy had volunteered to park the bloody thing, and Farmer had come on up to the flat on his own.

He was thinking again about the blonde woman who’d appeared like – yes – an angel, standing there amid the drunks and the detritus of a busy weekend’s policing. Angel O’Brien, once married to a crook. Probably a crook herself. But . . .

The door was opening.

It was opening fast.

And it wasn’t Angel O’Brien standing there, it was a fucking great bloke, big as a house wall, with a long face and massive shoulders – and he was rushing at Farmer.

‘Stop – police!’ shouted Farmer, and then he was shoulder-charged and knocked onto his arse as if he was light as thistledown. Which he wasn’t. ‘Oi, POLICE!’ he yelled again, but the man was off, thundering down the stairs.

Farmer flopped onto his back on the floor, winded, cursing. Every aching bruise that Donny Maguire’s old mates had inflicted upon him was shouting loudly in complaint. Pains were reawakening and making him wince. Through the open flat door he could see that the place had been trashed. Then the lift doors pinged open and Paddy stepped out.

‘What the fuck?’ he asked, seeing his boss laid out on the floor, the flat door agape and a scene of chaos inside.

Farmer gasped in a breath and let his head fall back onto the floor with a thump.

‘I am getting so fucking sick of this happening,’ he said.