‘I’m bloody going. I should have known a bloody Old Bill wouldn’t be any good to me when the chips were down. Your trouble is you fancy yourself as some kind of bleeding saint, Kate. Well, listen to me. I don’t need you or anyone else to point out my shortcomings. I’ve been aware of them for years. From the time I could understand what was going on around me. Yes, I wanted a bit of tea and sympathy, the same as you did when your daughter OD’d. And thanks a lot for nothing. I tell you something now, I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone really, I never did and I never will.’

As soon as he said the words he was sorry. He wanted to take Kate in his arms and love her, have her love him, but he couldn’t.

Kate watched him walk from the room, and heard the front door slam.

They had needed to get all this out in the open. But she was sorry it had come about like this. His dealings with the massage parlours would always have been between them; now they both knew where they stood.

That poor girl was dead. Patrick was feeling guilty, whatever he said. But where had that got her?

Kate stared at her sandwich.

She didn’t feel hungry any more.

Patrick walked out of Kate’s and cursed silently. He had let Willy go and now he would have to phone for a taxi. He began to wander aimlessly, looking for a phone box. Like George he was finding solace in the darkness. He breathed the cold night air into his lungs and once more his mind was on Gillian Enderby. He saw her lying in the cubicle, her hair falling down over the table, nearly touching the floor. She was a sweet-looking girl. She didn’t look like a prostitute, but then none of them did at first. He remembered a younger Violet - what a girl she had been!

He saw the lights of a call box and quickened his stride. Renée had never been happy about the prostitution. She would sit in for him on the repo side of the business but had flatly refused to have anything to do with the massage parlours. It was an unspoken agreement that they were never mentioned at home, even in passing.

He walked into the phone booth and after unsuccessfully trying to find a cab number rang up Willy and ordered him to pick him up. He knew better than to ask why his boss was ringing from a call box and not from Kate’s.