‘I do that, Father. As you know, she herself works for the family of a doctor of some repute in Liverpool and I have the numbers for a wonderful woman by the name of Mrs O’Keefe, her friend and neighbour, and Cat, who lived next door to Bee when she was in Liverpool. You see, there’s no end of people I can talk to who can tell me themselves that this story is a crock of the fairies’ shite.’ That sentence finished on a roar too.

Father Jerry smiled at Michael, attempting to dispel the animosity. He failed.

As the door closed, Michael threw the dudeen into the hearth and it shattered, sending splinters of clay across the floor. He went to the desk in the corner of his sitting room and pulled open the drawer. It had been made by his grandfather, Daedio, for Michael and his first wife, Sarah, what now seemed an age ago. The top was strewn with orders and invoices, bills, IOUs and notes of payment. Rummaging beneath, he found his address book and, opening it, the numbers he was looking for under L for Liverpool.

The first number was Cat’s and his heart beat a little faster, but the photographs on the desk of his wife Rosie and son Finn forced him take a deep breath. He’d surprised himself that he felt no shame for his passionate two-day affair in Liverpool with funny, irreverent Cat. She and her quirky accent had made him laugh every time she spoke, but he was firm in his resolve: it must never happen again. What had felt like a pleasure in Liverpool was most definitely a sin back at home. And it was two years in the past now.

*

As Father Jerry reached the doors of the church, he fingered the thin blue airmail paper he was still holding in his hand and flicked open the letter Mrs Brogan had given him so hard, the flimsy paper almost ripped. He read it once more.

She loved him like no woman I have ever known to love a man. It was like something from the films. Dr William told me they were totally devoted to each other.

Every nurse on the ward cried the day he died, even Sister closed the door of her office for a while and bit the tea lady’s head off when she wheeled her trolley in. It wasn’t just because he was a marvellous doctor – Sister used to tell us every single day how great he was and how lovely to his patients – he’d been a big favourite with all the ward sisters when he was a houseman at the hospital. Dr Gaskell, he’s the big-boss-man doctor in this hospital, said we were all upset about it not only because the doctor had been a part of the hospital family, but also because he was as devoted to Mary Kate as she was to him and it was a sadness that they had so little time together.