“You’ve seen her?”

“Yes. She’s very tired, but I think you may say hello, show your face and then go. Room ten.”

He patted Dillon on the shoulder, turned away and Dillon passed through the doors to the rear corridor.

When he went in, the room was in half darkness, the matron, Maggie Duncan, drawing the curtains. She turned and came forward. Her voice had a tinge of the Scottish Highlands about it.

“Here you are again, Sean. What am I going to do with you?” She patted his face. “God knows, I’ve patched you up enough times over the years.”

“You can’t patch me up this time, Maggie. How is she?”

They both turned and looked at Hannah Bernstein, festooned in a seemingly endless web of tubes and drips, oxygen equipment and electronic screens. Her eyes were closed, the lids almost translucent.

Maggie said, “She’s very weak. It’s a huge load for her heart to bear.”

“It would be. We expected too much from her, all of us. Especially me,” Dillon said.

“When she was in last year, when that Party of God terrorist shot her, we used to talk a lot and mainly about you. She’s very fond of you, Sean. Oh, she might not approve, but she’s very fond.”

“I’d like to believe that,” Dillon said. “But let’s say I don’t deserve it.”

Hannah’s eyelids flickered open. She said softly, “What’s wrong, Sean? Feeling sorry for yourself, the hard man of the IRA?”

“Damn sorry,” he told her, “and you putting the fear of God in me.”

“Oh, dear, I’m in the wrong again.”

Maggie Duncan said, “Two minutes, Sean, and I’ll be back.”

She went out, the door closed softly and Dillon stood at the end of the bed. “Mea culpa,” he said.

“There you go, blaming yourself again. It’s a kind of self-justification – no, worse, an overindulgence. Is that some kind of Irish thing?”

“Damn you!” he said.