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alike to get on.
    Though no one had yet had the guts to say that to either of them.
    ‘So, I suppose it will all be dragged up again, won’t it? The violent murders. The drink, drugs, whoring … It will give this lot round here grist to their mills for a while.’
    26
     
    Louise didn’t answer the taunt. She dropped her eyes and concentrated on a small stain on the carpet, fighting an urge to swing back her arm and fell the woman sitting on her sofa. Instead she plastered on a smile and said gaily, ‘The wedding will likely take the edge off the gossip anyway. You know, the murderess’s sister marrying your only son.’
    She saw the barb had hit home. Mickey was a mummy’s boy and everyone knew it. But Lucy was well able for him and his mother once the marriage was a fact. They both fell silent, but the animosity in the room was almost tangible.
    Marie watched the activity in the Spitalfields gym. It was eight-thirty in the morning and people were already there working up a sweat. She observed them from a small cafe opposite and marvelled at the women working so industriously to keep their bodies in shape for men. It was the same in prison; most women were only in there because of a man yet their one aim in life was to get out and get another as soon as possible. It had amazed her.
    Marie was happy to be alone. She was an expert in it nowadays. As she sipped her coffee she kept an eye out for Pat Connor. The thought of facing him scared her, but she knew she had to. He owed her, owed her big time, and although she was wary of him there was no real fear of him any more. There was nothing he could do to her now, say to her now, that she hadn’t done or said to herself.
    One thing about prison, it made you mentally strong if nothing else.
    He arrived at nine-thirty-five in a black BMW convertible. He looked good, but the old feelings she’d harboured for him were long gone. Once -his body had drawn her like a beacon. He looked better these days, toned, well-dressed, but she knew what he really was now and he no longer attracted her.
    She paid her bill, gasped at the thought that three cups of coffee had cost nearly six pounds, and as she crossed the road to the gym told herself she would have to walk back to the hostel because she was skint.
    Marie gathered a few admiring glances despite her old clothes. She was a good-looking woman even without make-up or expensively styled hair. But she ignored them. She was on a mission and she was going to complete it. She was smiling as she walked into Pat’s Gym.
    27
     

    Patrick Connor was sipping herbal tea and lotting up his night’s takings when Wednesday, his young secretary, told him a woman was outside insisting she wanted to see him.
    ‘What’s she like?’
    The girl shrugged.
    ‘Blonde, not bad-looking but scruffy …’
    Before she could finish Marie had walked into the room.
    ‘Hello, Pat. Long time no see, eh?’
    She enjoyed seeing the fear in his eyes, and the greyness that was appearing underneath his chocolate-brown skin.
    Wednesday looked from one to the other with obvious interest.
    Pat sat down behind his executive desk. His legs felt weak.
    ‘Goodbye, Wednesday.’
    His voice had a note she had never heard in it before. She had seen her boss deal with violent drug dealers and bona ride faces. This woman was intriguing. Who was she that she could rattle
    Patrick Connor? “
    ‘Shall I bring through some coffee?’
    The girl was smiling at Marie as she said it, evading Pat’s eye.
    Marie nodded in a friendly way.
    ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’
    Alone she and Pat looked at one another for long moments. He broke the silence as Marie knew he would. It was a knack she had developed in prison. Quietness scared people, she’d found. If you waited long enough they would speak first and it gave you the upper hand. And with Pat, you needed that edge. He would lie about what he’d had for breakfast, couldn’t help it, it was part of his