For days after the party she felt sick, actually ill with revulsion. Whenever she closed her eyes to go to sleep, she saw again that bundle of raw meat at the foot of the stairs, heard the screams, smelled the awful stench of death.

No, it was over.

But Dickie didn’t turn up.

She went to the war memorial the week after that. Again, no Dickie.

So it was over anyway. But she would have preferred things neat. She wanted to look Dickie in the eye and tell him it was done.

Dora turned up on the third Saturday and there was the pale blue Mark II Zodiac, parked up near the memorial. Heart beating hard, bracing herself for what she had to do, she hurried forward.

Dickie wasn’t in the car.

It was Frank. Seated in the back again. And behind the wheel? It was the big bloke with the weird Frankenstein scar across his brow, all puckered and purple. Hideous. He turned his head and stared at her dead-eyed, without expression. Dora recoiled.

‘Oh God,’ popped out of her mouth involuntarily.

Frank wound down his window. ‘Dora, innit?’ he said, while she stood there, glued to the spot.

Dora couldn’t speak. She saw that Frank was wearing the camel-hair coat again. There wasn’t a speck of blood on it, though. Not now. His greasy wavy hair was combed, his pudgy face was calm, his expression almost friendly.

‘Dora?’

‘Yeah,’ she managed to get out. She swallowed nervously, flicked a glance at the monster behind the wheel.

‘Don’t pay no mind to Mr Bruno Graves here,’ said Frank. ‘That scar there? Someone got in a fight with him and decided they’d try to scalp him. Almost succeeded, too, didn’t they, Bruno?’

Bruno said nothing.

‘Where . . . where’s Dickie?’

‘Dickie’s had to go away. But don’t worry, we’re looking after him.’

Meaning what?

She had only come here to tell Dickie he could go fuck himself. If she’d known Frank would be waiting for her, she wouldn’t have come at all, not in a million years.

‘Look. You had a shock at Kim’s place. I understand that. But you didn’t say nothing to nobody about it, right?’ Frank said.

She was standing here with a cold-blooded killer. Again she saw the knife, slashing over and over again. The blood. The horror of it. Her throat seemed to be shut.

‘Tony Dillon was a prick,’ Frank went on. ‘Pushing in where he wasn’t wanted. Called me an arse-bandit, you believe that? Cheek of that cunt. Needed sorting.’

Dora took in a gasping breath of air. ‘I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t.’

A sneer of a smile slithered over Frank’s face. ‘I knew you wouldn’t. Just wanted to check in with you, see you’re OK.’

‘I’m . . . I am. Yes.’

‘So you know what I’m going to do? I’m gonna buy you dinner. Make up for all that.’

All that? Make up for murdering a man right there in front of her, in front of everyone?