She let herself out of the front door and made sure it was left so she could easily come back in. Moonlight was now flooding Empire Street, picking out all the details of the bomb damage – the missing tiles, splintered frames and the empty space where a house had once stood. She leant against the wall for a moment. If only Danny were here.

Briefly she closed her eyes. She missed him, and he hadn’t even been gone for very long. She’d come to rely on their almost daily conversations, his humour, the knowledge that she could ask him anything – and that he would ask her too. There had been a bond between them for years. She had been the only one apart from him and the doctors who had known about his heart condition, and he’d sworn her to secrecy. She’d said nothing to anyone until the accident, when he’d been so badly affected and the cat was well and truly out of the bag.

She also knew, although Danny hadn’t realised she knew, that Alfie had some underhand interest in him. That was one reason she was so alarmed that Alfie had sought out Tommy. She’d overheard the occasional comment over the years and put two and two together. That was why Alfie’s return could not mean anything good.

She was also deeply uneasy about his ongoing interest in Kitty. However, she wasn’t sure what she could do about it. In the usual run of things she would have immediately turned to Danny for advice, or as a sounding board to talk through her own thoughts. Sometimes he understood her better than she did herself. She realised she’d taken this for granted; it was as normal as breathing, until the day he’d packed his bags and gone on that blasted course.

Sarah had always known that she had strong feelings for Danny, but, being an unusually steady and responsible teenager, she’d told herself that things might change as she got older and she should do nothing hasty. After all, the Feenys and the Callaghans had grown up almost as one big family, so it was no wonder she felt so close to him. Then her sister Rita had married his brother Jack, to further cement the bonds between them.

But the feelings she now had for him were anything but sisterly. She had to admit it. While he was here every day she could go on as usual, enjoying his company, trusting him with her innermost thoughts, loving the way they seemed to agree on just about everything. Now he wasn’t here she was lonely even in the midst of her friends, family and colleagues. None of them came close to him.