‘No, I . . .’

All she wanted was to turn and run back home. But she couldn’t get her feet to move. She was literally frozen to the spot with fear.

He held up a hand. There was a big plaster on the side of his palm. Probably he’d cut himself while he’d been busy killing Tony Dillon.

Oh Christ . . .

‘No arguments, Dora. I’m gonna buy you a slap-up meal, we are gonna be friends, you and me. That all right with you?’

What to say, what to say . . .

‘I don’t, I can’t . . .’ she heard herself babbling.

‘No, no. I understand.’ When you looked closer, his eyes were like dark green bits of glass, she thought, washed up on a beach. They were as soulless as a lizard’s. ‘Like I say. You had a shock. And now Dickie’s gone away and you’re confused. It’s not a problem, Dora. You and me, we’re going to meet right here at seven this evening, and we are going to fix things between us. It will all be fine.’

Fine? How the fuck could it ever be fine?

‘Deal?’ he said.

Dora’s tongue felt too big for her mouth, and dry as a desert. She swallowed, tried to work a little spittle up. She wanted to say no. But you didn’t say no to a killer. You couldn’t.

‘Deal,’ she blurted out, then she turned on her heel and walked back on shaking legs the way she’d come.

‘Oh Christ,’ she said when she got to the gate of her house, where safety and sanity prevailed. But the way wasn’t clear. William Maguire was there in his wheelchair again, waiting for her.

‘You hear about it?’ he asked. ‘You hear about your boyfriend?’

‘What?’ Dora’s head was spinning. She had stumbled into something awful with Dickie, and now . . . now she was supposed to meet up with that animal Frank tonight. Well, she wouldn’t go. That was all there was to it. She just wouldn’t.

‘You ain’t heard? Tricky Dickie Cole’s been arrested for murder. Hauled off down the nick.’

‘What?’ But Frank had said Dickie had gone away.

‘They reckon he done Tony Dillon, one of the gang bosses. Knifed him. Reckon he’s going to do years for it.’

Dora stared at William’s triumphant face and the truth came up and hit her between the eyes like a brick. Dickie had been supposed to kill Tony Dillon, but he’d messed it up. Frank had stepped in, and now Frank was making Dickie the fall guy anyway.

We’ll look after him . . .

Oh God. Dickie was going down for Tony Dillon’s murder, and now Frank was going to be ‘looking after her’ while he did his stint inside. Because . . . what? Because that was how these people operated? Or because Frank fancied a shot with her now Dickie was off the scene? Or was it that she had seen what happened the afternoon in Kim’s basement? Was it because she was a witness to a murder?