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prettiness it lost when she was animated. The sour look was gone; the lines that anguish had imprinted there were smoothed out. She looked what she was: an attractive young woman with good bone structure and thick auburn hair that would probably have been glossy on another woman. One with self-respect, one who still cared about herself.
    Kate took Regina’s hand in hers and held it gently. The warm pressure was returned and the gesture made Kate think of her own daughter, Lizzy, when she had overdosed. Unlike Regina, her mother had been there for her; her granny had too. Regina, it appeared, had no one to depend on. To share things with. All she had was three children, a council flat and drugs. A lethal combination. Loneliness was the worst kind of unhappiness, something Kate herself knew only too well.
    She saw the girl’s eyes open. ‘You’re OK, Regina,’ she said softly. ‘Try and sleep.’
    Regina was still half drugged. She nodded and said in a hoarse voice, ‘I never hurt my baby . . . not my baby. The only person I’ve ever hurt is myself.’
    Kate didn’t answer her. She didn’t know what to say.
     
    Outside the hospital Kate lit a cigarette and sat on a bench while she gathered her thoughts together.
    She remembered coming to this same hospital when Patrick’s daughter Mandy had been attacked. Kate could still see her lying in the hospital bed after what they had hoped would be a life-saving operation. Her head had been opened up to relieve the pressure on her swollen brain. Mandy Kelly had taken a beating that had been as vicious as it had been random.
    Kate would never have dreamed that night, as she waited in the hospital, that Mandy’s father - a local hard man and local businessman to boot - would not only garner her respect, but also her love. Patrick’s helplessness at his daughter’s plight had struck a chord inside her. She had seen him vulnerable and frightened, as she guessed no one else ever had. Not even his wife Renée, or his daughter Mandy, who had died at the hands of the Grantley Ripper.
    George Markham came into her mind then, his face. His little smile.
    She had been on CID ten years then and she had learned so much since then that, these days, she could make sense of Patrick Kelly and his life. He was bad, she knew that. But he lived by a different set of rules and Kate had to admit that, against her better judgement, those rules worked for him. In fact, her boss Ratchette was in league with him.
    But no matter what she had found out about him - she had known he was a villain from the off - his personality and his innate sense of right and wrong, however twisted it seemed to her, had drawn them together. She had forgiven him so much, had chosen to believe in him and in the fact that he had changed for her.
    He had given up his various nefarious businesses. He had become legit for her. That was all the proof she needed to fall even deeper into his life and allow the natural love inside her to encompass them both.
    For a man like Patrick to turn his back on his whole way of life spoke volumes.
    Finally she had a man she could love and respect properly. And God Himself knew, she loved him with every ounce of her being.
     
    Patrick sat in the conservatory listening to Willy in amazement.
    ‘It seems, Pat, that Micky was dabbling with Joey Partridge and Jacky Gunner.’
    ‘Who told you this?’
    Willy shrugged. ‘I hear a few beats off the street still, Pat. I ain’t bleeding dead.’
    ‘So it would seem. What business was he in with them, then? Christ knows, he was into enough of them.’
    Willy grinned. ‘The oldest profession. Be fair, Pat, it was always Wanker’s forte, weren’t it?’
    Pat felt a sickening lurch in his stomach. ‘Not European birds? Not that?’
    Willy nodded.
    ‘How did you come by this information?’
    ‘A little bird told me.’
    Patrick laughed at Willy’s smug expression. ‘Lived up to his name, didn’t he? All this hag. I mean, the chances are