“We were in love,” she said simply, unable to express in mere words something that felt so deep and true to her. “My parents had a fit when they found out. I was locked in the house for a week, but Oscar climbed in through my bedroom window and helped me escape. It was pure Romeo and Juliet.” Margo smiled at the memory, the day she left her parents for the last time. They never spoke to her again. “Although it did turn out more Bonnie and Clyde in the end.”

“How do you mean, Bonnie and Clyde – the bank robbers?”

Margo laughed at her pronunciation of robbers, the r rolling around her tongue in a parody of a French accent.

“Aye, ze bonk hrrobbers. We got involved in a few scrapes, nothing much, but the polis started taking an interest. Oscar was beaten up more than a few times by the polis. Bastards!”

“Are you saying Oscar was mistreated by the police?”

“Aye, they took him into the cells and took turns hitting him. Happens all the time, you just live with it.” She watched as the reporter’s pencil raced across the notepad, then her eyes widened as she realised what the scribbles represented. “Is that shorthand?” Her finger pointed at the notebook.

“Yes, any reporter should know how to use shorthand. You can’t always rely on electronic equipment.” Josephine’s eyes indicated the mobile phone lying innocuously in between them.

“No, guess not.” Margo filed away that information for later. “Aye, well, it was just small-town stuff. You know, bit of drug dealing, stealing stuff people wouldn’t even know was missing. Just making ends meet. Oscar was hardly a criminal, but he was a bit too quick to use his fists. I held him back a lot, stopped him before he did too much damage. People used to wind him up on purpose, you see, especially when he’d had a drink. Thought that he’d be easier to take on if he was pissed, get themselves a reputation as the man who brought Oscar down. Trouble was, I couldn’t control him when he was pissed – he really hurt some of those guys. It was their own fault, everyone knew not to wind him up when he was pissed!” She said this defiantly, still protecting Oscar even after he was dead.

“And when did he start hurting you?” Josephine’s voice was quiet, the question unexpected.

When did it start? She cast her mind back to the early years, his playful ‘hitting’ as he’d called it. She’d accepted the smacks as his way of showing he loved her – they weren’t proper punches, just affectionate. “We’d been together a couple of years and I’d caught him with another girl.” Her memory took her back to that day, the hurt she’d felt at being so easily replaced by another woman, the mix of anger and fear as she confronted him. He’d hit her properly then, she remembered her head exploding from the force of the blow before she learnt how to move with his fist, reduce the force of the impact without avoiding it – that just made him want to hit her harder. Funny thing was she welcomed the pain, it hurt less than the feeling of rejection, of being used, of being disposable. In time, the physical violence became a natural part of their relationship, and like a whipped cur she crawled back to him every time.