Now they both took the same pavement table as that earlier night. A couple of city types — striped shirts, pint glasses, clouded intellects — sprawled at an adjacent table and leered at Gwen. Jack propped himself in a metal chair, still wearing his greatcoat but draping it so that the chair back was between his body and the coat.

By sitting next to him, Gwen got the same clear view of the street, ideal on a sunny day and still acceptable as the sky became more overcast and early evening began to draw in. There was a pre-storm smell in the air, ‘the ozone tang of unspent lightning’ Jack had called it as they’d sat down. The tarmac released the day’s earlier heat. Shoppers bustled past with too little time and too many bags on their race back to the car parks against the coming rain.

A small knot of Merryhill pupils, still in school uniform, jostled past another group from Roath High. The early evening concert at the Millennium Centre must just have finished, thought Gwen, spilling a brawling crowd of secondary-school kids into the area on their way home. God, it was bad enough keeping them apart when they got older and got bladdered and went on the town. She hoped they weren’t going to have to keep them apart when they were in their early teens as well.

Then she remembered that wasn’t her job any more. And wasn’t sure whether to be sorry or just relieved.

She and Jack were served by the same good-looking waiter who had served Gwen on their last visit. Her mental notebook told her he was Enrico ‘Rico’ Celi, early thirties, second-generation Welsh Italian, with almost stereotypical Latin looks but an incongruous South Coast accent. He’d inherited the café from his dad. Jack teased him that his tan was fading the longer he stayed in South Wales. Rico could swear in Welsh, Gwen discovered. But he didn’t seem to mind Jack slapping his backside as he stooped to deliver their drinks.