‘He will be home soon,’ she said to herself. ‘Home and well.’ She said it a dozen times a day, to the point where she usually managed to convince herself that he would indeed be home soon. But tonight her words had no effect.

She heard the sound of the taxi approaching the end of the drive. Folding the towel, she ran to the door. As she reached the landing, she remembered her velvet ribbon and her mother’s emerald, which were still on the bathroom shelf.

‘Come along, Mary Kate,’ shouted Mrs O’Keefe.

‘Drat!’ Mary Kate glanced towards the bathroom and promised herself that she’d put it back on the second she got home.

‘Mary Kate has no idea, does she?’ said Deidra as she stood next to Joan at the sink and placed her arms around her shoulders.

‘Neither did that one, until this afternoon,’ said Mrs O’Keefe grimly, inclining her head towards Joan as she scraped the remains off her plate and into the dog’s bowl. ‘I’m guessing that as it’s Lavinia Marcus who’s the next of kin, she’s the one who’s been told how serious it is and poor Mary Kate has been left in the dark.’

‘I sent a message to Cat. She knows the ward and is on her way to meet you,’ said Deidra.

Cat had been a solid friend to Mary Kate since the day she had disembarked the Dublin to Liverpool ferry and got herself mugged. Cat had taken pity on Mary Kate and looked after her, no questions asked. That had also been the day that Mary Kate had fallen helplessly in love with the doctor who’d rescued her.

There was the crunch of wheels on the gravel outside.

‘Come on now, Mary Kate,’ Mrs O’Keefe shouted up the stairs. ‘The taxi’s here.’

Mary Kate ran down the last steps and took her thick gloves from Mrs O’Keefe’s outstretched hand. Her coat was as warm as toast from having been dried by the range, and wisps of steam rose from the still slightly damp shoulders.

Just as Mrs O’Keefe opened the front door to step out, the telephone rang.

‘Oh, I have to answer that,’ Mary Kate said.

‘No, you don’t. We will lose five precious minutes off your hour if we wait a second longer. The girls can answer it. Joan, Deidra, get that phone, the meter is ticking away out here.’ Pushing Mary Kate out into the now cold night air, Mrs O’Keefe slammed the front door behind them.

Joan didn’t have the same degree of confidence as Deidra on the telephone and her voice was tremulous when she picked up the handset. ‘Hello?’ she almost whispered.

‘Hello,’ came the reply, in a calm, kind but authoritative tone. ‘Could I speak with Miss Mary Kate Malone. It’s the matron from St Angelus here.’

Joan gasped. Speaking to the matron was on a similar level to answering the phone to a call from the Pope. She looked back over her shoulder towards Deidra, who was now at her side. Her eyes were wide and frightened. ‘She’s gone in the taxi,’ said Joan, speaking into the handset, her gaze never leaving Deidra’s face.