His Jessie’s reputation, such as it was, had preceded her as usual. They assumed she was drugged and/or drunk out of her head somewhere, because that was what she was famous for. Twenty years old, and she was already a legend in her own lunchtime. She had been excluded from every school he had sent her to, and instead she had embraced the underworld from an early age – from the drug dealers, to the scumbags who hung around the council estates, the burglars, gas-meter bandits with the homemade tattoos – she spent her time in filthy squats until he brought her back home to her mother time and again.

Michael had given up on her completely by the time she was fifteen. He had found her naked on a filthy mattress in a condemned house in Hackney, with a junkie three times her age, who had given her not only a black eye but a dose of gonorrhea as well. He had known then that he had no choice but to step away from her emotionally. He loved her, but he could not get through to her. Nevertheless, he had gone back and almost kicked the man to death for doing that to his baby. He had vented his anger, looking around at how she had been living. She was available to any man who tipped her the wink and who she thought would anger her father, and bring shame on him.

He didn’t understand it. She had a home that was not only full of love for her, but was beautiful. She had everything she desired; she had had the chance to go to a good school, and had a good life ahead of her. But from thirteen years of age she had made it her business to find the lowest of the low, and make a home there with them for herself, and she had broken her mother’s heart in the process. Unlike him, her mother still felt she could turn her life around, redeem herself. But Michael refused to get involved anymore; she was his Achilles heel, his only real weakness. Her antics were common knowledge in his world, and it was only his status that stopped people from gossiping openly about her.