Nancy decided that was a harmless enough request, and they would be back on the busy street so he was hardly likely to try anything. He didn’t look the type anyway. He seemed a real gentleman. He had the look of a man who’d trained hard and carried himself easily, a very attractive combination.

‘Well, thank you very much,’ she breathed. ‘Please don’t feel obliged, if it’s taking you out of your way …’

‘Nothing of the kind,’ he said. ‘It will be my pleasure. Staff Sergeant Gary Trenton at your service, ma’am.’ His eyes twinkled at her in the moonlight.

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Trenton, and I’m very grateful,’ said Nancy, wondering at the change of luck in her evening as she counted the chevrons on his jacket. ‘Nancy Kerrigan.’ She held out her hand, they shook, and he gently took her arm as he shepherded her towards the bus stop.

CHAPTER SIX

The southerly wind bore the sharp smell of the nearby sea. Kitty lifted her head automatically to catch it, as she used to do so many times when back home the westerlies would carry the scent of the River Mersey to her front door. It took her back to her childhood, to when her mother was still alive and before she had had to take on the care of the household. She’d played in the street, looking up to Rita back in those days, chasing Nancy and borrowing her skipping rope, watching Sarah learn to walk and talk. Even though times had been tough, she hadn’t known any better and had just accepted how things were. Sometimes they’d hear Pop Feeny play his accordion and they would all sing along to songs from the music hall, or ones that Pop and Dolly knew from their own childhoods over in Ireland. Kitty could just about remember her mother joining in. She’d had a fine voice. It might not have been up to Gloria Arden’s standard, but they’d all gathered round on the rare occasions Ellen Callaghan stopped her never-ending housework and started a song.