‘God, do we need that.’ Cat had finally located her cigarettes and took them out of her handbag. ‘Who wants a smoke, girls?’

Mrs O’Keefe got to her feet. ‘I haven’t smoked for years, but I will tonight,’ she said.

Cat handed her one and struck a match. She noted the tremble in Mrs O’Keefe’s hand as she bent her head to the flame to accept the light. Mrs O’Keefe may have seen a lot more of life than Mary Kate, but she had clearly also been affected by all the upset. ‘Gi’s the whiskey here,’ Cat said as she shook the match with a flick of her wrist to extinguish the flame. ‘I’ll pour it. Go on, your hands are shaking, you sit down. You’ve been a saint these past few weeks. Go on, time to do as someone else says now.’

Cat glanced round Mrs O’Keefe’s smart sitting room. ‘Come here, Deidra. I’ll pour and you carry the glasses over to that little table in front of the fire. Joan, come on, love, stop your crying now, we can’t change a thing. Push that sofa closer to the fire. I do love these big houses, but honest to God, how can you feel the heat from the fire when you’re sitting a mile away from it?’

She removed the cork plug from the top of the bottle with a dull plop and began to pour the whiskey into the Waterford tumblers she had located in the opposite end of the sideboard. ‘That was a strong sedative that doctor gave Mary Kate. I could feel her legs going on the way back. I reckon we got home just in time. We need a sedative of our own and this will do very nicely.’

She poured three fingers of whiskey into each glass. ‘Go on, get that down your neck,’ she said to Mrs O’Keefe, and they all collapsed onto the chairs and the sofa that Joan had dragged nearer the fire.

There was quiet for a few moments as the first burn of the amber liquid slipped down their throats. On the first sip, Deidra and Joan, unused to drink, began to cough. By the end of the second glass, Joan was gulping it down and letting her feelings be known.

‘They was living in sin,’ she half slurred. ‘Deidra and I, we knew ’twould end badly, didn’t we, Deidra.’

‘Now, now, Joan,’ said Mrs O’Keefe. ‘Mary Kate is all that matters now. When that sedative wears off and the truth hits her, she is going to need looking after by her friends, and I would say that is us. God knows, there’s no one else.’

Cat held up the bottle and gestured at their glasses. ‘Shall I?’ she asked, then began to pour them each a third shot.

When they’d all been topped up, she asked the question that had been playing on her mind for a while. ‘Shall I call her da in Ireland?’ she said. She had fallen badly for Mary Kate’s da, Michael, during his one brief visit to Liverpool, when they had indulged in their own dangerous liaison. It had never been repeated, even though Cat wished it would be, every single day. She had met a number of men over the months since, but none had been Michael Malone, and Michael had never returned to Liverpool.