She sighed. ‘It’s perfect, because the bank vault where our replacement engineered foetuses are located will be completely destroyed in the fire. Everything. All the safe deposit boxes, their contents, all the client paperwork… everything. No paper trail.’

Liam grinned. ‘Ah, very clever.’

‘Exactly.’

The hubbub on Mission Street was added to by the noisy clatter of a sputtering engine. Its noise blotted out everything as it slowly approached them. They finally saw the vehicle rolling down the middle of the street on flimsy spoked wheels, following a man on foot waving a red warning flag before him.

‘Wow! I didn’t know they had cars then!’ Maddy shouted in his ear.

He shook his head. ‘Now who’s being dumb! Of course we did!’ He watched the vehicle slowly rattle past, steered by a man wearing a cap and goggles. Beside him sat a woman sporting a cloud of ostrich feathers above her head, her gloved hands clasped over her ears at the cacophony.

‘Now I know that’s an Oldsmobile Model R,’ added Liam as the vehicle finally turned right off Mission Street and the laboured clatter of internal combustion allowed them to talk easily once more. ‘There were quite a few of those things dashing about Cork — yes, even Cork — when I left.’

She shook her head. ‘Hardly dashing.’

They walked on another few minutes in silence, Maddy enjoying playing the lady in her own period-piece Hollywood movie and Liam feeling like this was something of a trip home for him. Back to his time, back to a place where he could talk easily with anyone and not be made to feel like a complete moron for not knowing what a digicam was, or that Seven-Up wasn’t some kind of a ball game, or that a Snickers Bar wasn’t some sort of sleazy nightclub.

‘This is it,’ Maddy finally said, pointing to a narrow side street. ‘There… Minna Street.’