‘I am sorry about that thing with Kelly,’ Tony said after a few moments silence. ‘I was being a tube.’

‘You were,’ Karen agreed.

‘I was totally out of order.’

‘You were,’ she repeated.

‘Am I forgiven?’

‘I’ve not decided yet,’ she said, with a faint smile.

‘Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?’ Tony said, his voice just the right side of plaintive.

‘I’ll take half your Mars.’

‘I thought you didn’t like caramel!’

‘I’ve forgiven it. Besides, you don’t need it all. You’ll get fat.’

‘Don’t hold back now,’ Tony laughed, glad that she was teasing him.

‘You’ve a lot to make up for,’ Karen said, her smile fully alive now.

‘I could write you a poem.’

‘Not based on the evidence from earlier,’ she laughed.

They sat in companionable silence a moment. Suddenly, the front door of the house they were watching opened and a thin, slightly stooped man stepped down into the driveway. His movements were small and precise like a sparrow’s as he picked his way to the car, opening it and getting in without any hesitation.

‘He didn’t check under it,’ Tony noted.

They watched as his red Cortina pulled out of the driveway and headed up the street away from them.

‘Job done,’ Karen said, starting the car ignition and, after waiting until the cop’s car had a good head start, drove off.

‘Alice came back to me,’ Tony said, as they headed back into Glasgow. ‘At the end of the day.’

The line had clearly been annoying her. Through the rest of the cover class she sat, head lowered, her teeth worrying the skin at the side of her thumbnail as she scored out draft after draft of the poem. Finally, she sat up, staring at the far wall, then lowered her head and scribbled once more, closing the book just before the bell rang and Tony dismissed the class, standing at the doorway to collect in their work as they left the room.

‘See you, sir,’ Alice said as she passed him, the last to leave the room.

‘Did you get it finished?’

She nodded. ‘I’m going to write one for Mummy, too,’ she said.

Tony nodded his encouragement as she laid her book on top of the pile he held.

Before he left the room, he flicked through her exercise book to see her finished draft. Her handwriting was small, neat, her tailed letters contained, showing no signs of ostentation or showiness.

‘Daddy can be happy

And sometimes sad he’ll be.

Damaged by life and the

Death of his wife

Yet I know he loves me.’

‘Now, that is sad,’ Karen said, after he’d recited it to her. ‘You’re a good man, you know that? Despite being a tube.’

They’d reached Glasgow now and Tony wondered whether Karen would drop him off somewhere or suggest going back to hers. In the end, she did neither, instead asking him if he wanted to get something to eat. They went to O’Reilly’s, a traditional bar that incongruously only served pizza, and shared a pizza and a few drinks, before picking up a bottle of wine and a few cans from behind the bar and heading back to Karen’s.