Into his mind came a picture of George when he was a small boy, in his National Health glasses and long grey socks. They had been playing hide and seek while their mother was out working and George was laughing his head off. Real, robust, childish laughter. Joseph remembered it clearly because it had happened so rarely.

The Markowitz children had had nothing to laugh about most of the time.

Joseph wept.

He wept for the George he had known. The little boy he should have protected more. The little boy who used to cry every night, who was frightened of his mother and yet loved her so much. No matter what she did to him.

Patrick Kelly slept heavily that night, a long blissful sleep, the first since his daughter had been murdered.

His last thought as he drifted off was of Kate. He wished she was beside him, but after what she had said, he knew the gulf between them was too wide.

Kate Burrows was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Tomorrow he would get out his little black book. Go back to the women who understood him. Who wanted nothing more from him than a good time.

He didn’t need Kate Burrows. She was a forty-year-old woman while he could have any gorgeous girl he wanted. And have them he would. He would become a playboy again.

He smiled to himself at the thought. That would please Willy. He had always enjoyed observing his boss’s affairs.

Kate Burrows could get stuffed.

Happy he had sorted his life out, Patrick slept.

Kate lay awake, her mind in a turmoil, her body aching to be touched. To be comforted by Patrick Kelly’s lovemaking.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

4 March 1990

Kate was in the airport lounge watching Lizzy and her mother checking in for their flight. She stood by as their baggage was tagged and taken from them. A feeling of desolation assailed her. She would be alone for six weeks.

All she had was her work, and she was not happy with that, she admitted to herself. She wished she was getting on the plane with them. That she was going somewhere where she could forget the last few months.

Lizzy and Evelyn approached her. Kate watched the tall slim girl, who caught more than a few male eyes, and the stooped little woman beside her.

When had her mother developed a stoop? When had she become old?

She walked with them towards passport control, chatting about nothing. She was dreading saying goodbye, but knew that they had to go. Her mother would see her other child and the grandchildren whom she had only seen in photos and spoken to rarely, when funds allowed. She still had all their letters and had chronicled their ages from lovingly preserved school photos.

Dear Grandma . . . Now she would see them for herself. Kate was glad for her really. It was only selfishness that wanted her to stay at home.