No one had minded, least of all Jet, especially when Joan fell to her knees and threw her arms around his neck. She smelt of baking and bacon. Jet was happy, his future looked promising.

‘Mary Kate is asleep,’ said Joan, ‘but she’ll be so glad to see him safe and sound when she wakes up.’

‘I hope there was nothing she needed from the house,’ he said. ‘I’ve handed the keys back – she insisted.’ A grateful Jet licked his hand and settled down next to him. ‘If I never have to speak to that woman again, it would be too soon. You don’t meet many like her, even in my job.’ Rather than being grateful to him for his help, Lavinia Marcus had been as unpleasant as she could possibly be. ‘The agent said he would have the house sold in no time at all.’

‘Don’t tell Mary Kate,’ said Mrs O’Keefe. ‘She loved that house. It was their home. More than that, it was a sanctuary for those two.’

‘It is all just so unseemly,’ said William. ‘Such haste. His body barely cold before he’s transported to Surrey, a place he never even knew. The woman has a heart of stone, and, I hate to say, a fortune coming her way. She has the money from the practice, his doctor’s pension, the house, and whatever was in his bank account.’

Mrs O’Keefe almost slammed the empty dog bowl on the kitchen table, making Jet jump. ‘And that poor girl hasn’t a penny to her name, even though she looked after him through every day of his sickness, and ran his home for two years. If that witch had given him a divorce, Mary Kate would be his legal wife now. I would buy the house myself for her, if I could afford it.’

Joan banged the fridge door shut and passed Mrs O’Keefe a string of sausages, which she began to chop into Jet’s bowl.

‘She wouldn’t let you,’ said William matter-of-factly. ‘She’s filled with such a hatred for Mary Kate, I think she would rather burn the place down first.’ He took the cup of tea that a speechless Joan had poured from the pot and placed in his hand.

‘Why though? Why? She was the one who had the affair with his partner, and she’d done it before – that was the reason they moved to Liverpool in the first place, to escape the havoc she created in the last practice he had.’

William was propped against the table, nursing the cup in both hands, his brow furrowed. ‘I wish I knew. Do you think it’s the right thing for Mary Kate, going back to Ireland where no one even knows about Nicholas?’

Mrs O’Keefe placed the bowl on the floor for an eager Jet. ‘Heavens above, when did that dog last eat?’ She ran her hands under the tap. ‘Well, we will soon be finding out because she insists she’ll be leaving in a few days, and I don’t mind saying, I’m not happy about it. She is hanging onto his last words, says it’s all she has to go on. Because Nicholas told you, William, that Mary Kate was to go back to Tarabeg, she’s determined that that is what she’ll do.’