“They’ve always had a strange relationship, those two.”

Ferguson nodded. “She could never forgive him all those years with the IRA, all those deaths. She could never accept that his slate could be wiped clean.”

“And Dillon?”

“Always saw it as a great game. He’s a walking contradiction – warm and humorous, yet he kills at the drop of a hat. There’s nothing I could ask him to do that he would find too outrageous.”

“Everything a challenge,” Blake said. “Nothing too dangerous.”

“And on so many occasions she’s been dragged along with him.”

“And you think that’s what makes him feel guilty now?”

“Something like that.”

“And where would that leave you? After all, you give the orders, Charles.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Ferguson swallowed his scotch down and looked at the empty glass bleakly. “You know, I think I’ll have the other half.”

“Why not?” Blake said. “And I’ll join you. You look as if you could do with the company.”

Dillon arrived at Rosedene in the middle of the afternoon, parked his Mini Cooper outside and went in. As he approached the desk, Professor Henry Bellamy came out of his office.

“Now, look, Sean, she’s just been moved, you know that. Give her a chance to settle in.”

“How is she?” Dillon’s face was very pale.

“What do you expect me to say? As well as can be expected?”

At that moment, Rabbi Julian Bernstein, Hannah’s grandfather, came out of the hospitality room. He put both hands on Dillon’s shoulders.

“Sean, you look terrible.”

Bellamy eased himself away. Dillon said, “This life of Hannah’s, Rabbi, I’ve said it before, you must hate it. You must hate us all.”

“My dear boy, it’s the life she chose. I’m a practical man. Jews have to be. I accept that there are people who elect to take on the kind of work that ordinary members of society don’t want to, well, soil their hands with.”