Her neighbours were good to her though. Lionel, a Jamaican who’d come over on the Windrush and who now ran Naomi next door on the game and made a tidy old profit that way, sometimes brought her groceries, milk, papers. Lionel was nice. Usually he popped in on a Saturday before the parties started, made sure she was OK. Who’d have thought a pimp could be kind? But he was. He even tried to encourage Kim to be ‘one of his gals’ so that he could look after her even better, take proper care of her.

But Kim had been a gangland groupie for quite a long while – perhaps too long – and she turned Lionel down. She’d lost her fascination for the partying lifestyle and she’d had it with men controlling her. Right now she was looking for a job, any honest job would do, she didn’t care whether it was in a hairdresser’s sweeping up or in a factory on a production line packing biscuits. She was going straight.

‘But, gal, that won’t pay the rent,’ Lionel told her over and over. ‘Turn a few tricks as well – that will keep the wolf from the door.’

It was Lionel’s favourite saying. They all had to earn a crust, ‘keep the wolf from the door’, he said, and he saw nothing wrong in her opening her legs for a procession of men if it augmented her wages.

Actually, Kim was getting to the point where she might even take him up on his offer. The jobs seemed thin on the ground, and her savings were going down. A knock on the door broke her out of her reverie. There was Lionel, with his big watermelon grin, bringing her fruit, bread, milk, papers.

He really was very kind. Hoping to soften her up, of course, get her to change her mind.

Kim went and opened the door wide, a smile on her lips.

‘Lionel, you . . .’ she started.

But it wasn’t Lionel.

It was a huge ugly man with a deep purple scar running right across his forehead.

He pushed her back, inside the flat, and closed the door softly behind him.

19

After Dora parted company from Donny she wandered around, sat on a bench on the rec for a while. Put down her suitcase. Wondered what the hell to do. It was turning cold as the afternoon wore on. It was winter now, the nights were bitter. Moisture was settling on the grass. Dora stuck her hands in her coat pockets to warm them, and thought she’d better find a B & B or something. But apathy had her in its grip.

The man she thought she’d loved, the man she’d been going to marry, was under arrest.

Her family had chucked her out.

What the fuck was she going to do?

Bloody William Maguire. Why couldn’t that twerp and his bastard brother leave her alone?

She sat there, and time wore on. Darkness fell. Venus the evening star winked on in the heavens and the street lights flickered into life. Finally, chilled to the marrow, she picked up her suitcase at ten to seven, and walked down to the memorial.