Wishing and Hoping by Mia Dolan Page A

believe that Allegra had once been Victor Camilleri’s mistress. She’d left him following Marcie getting raped by Roberto. He’d beat her after finding out that she’d tried to warn Marcie that Roberto was looking for her.
    Nowadays Allegra was trying to build a more respectable life for herself. At the same time she was also repairing the links with her parents, who had been appalled at her shacking up with Camilleri. All this had happened after her sojourn at Pilemarshwhere she’d given birth. She’d never admitted who the father of the child was but swore that it wasn’t Victor Camilleri.
    At present she was studying for a law degree, though she admitted she hadn’t quite made up her mind whether that was the way she wanted to go.
    â€˜The right path will come to me in a flash,’ she said to her friends.
    Allegra had a precise way of speaking which was laced with a Spanish accent. Her parents hailed from Jerez and were something to do with the sherry trade. She’d not been her old self since parting from Victor Camilleri, though her clothes were still designer and, thanks to her wealthy – though largely absent – family she was not short of cash. All the same, Marcie detected a change in her, a more deep-thinking Allegra had replaced the elegant confidence she’d known before.
    â€˜So do you reckon your dad is still knocking around with that black girl, Ella?’ Sally asked.
    Marcie shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
    â€˜How would I know?’ Sally said casually.
    Marcie was not fooled. She could tell by the way Sally immersed herself in playing with Joanna, not meeting her eyes, that she knew more than she was letting on.
    â€˜I didn’t know that her name was Ella,’ said Marcie.
    â€˜I know that she had two kids and her old man does a runner every now and again, depending onwhether the police are looking for him. I’ve not heard that she’s around. So p’rhaps your dad is on the straight and narrow and it’s all a mistake.’
    â€˜I’m not stupid, Sally.’
    Sally had a way of sighing when she knew the game was up. She did that now. ‘OK,’ she said, tipping Joanna gently off her back. ‘I did hear there’s a new bird on the scene. But I don’t know her name. That’s all I know. I would have thought he would have told you more. I’m only repeating gossip – you know how it is in the club scene – everybody is always shagging somebody, the most unlikely people too, blokes who you’d always understood were happily married, but, as I said, that’s the club-land scene for you. All blokes are the same – all of them, without exception –’
    She stopped abruptly, suddenly aware of what she’d just said. ‘Not Michael, of course. Michael I would swear by. Honest I would. He’s the only bloke I know who I’d lay my life on being faithful. One hundred per cent.’ She laughed lightly.
    â€˜I know he is,’ said Marcie with undisguised confidence. ‘I know he is. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me – besides my kids that is. Absolutely the best.’
    But the barb had hit home and that night, as she lay in bed waiting for him to come home, she wondered if he hadn’t been with someone else.

Chapter Six
    PADDY RAFFERTY LIVED in a palatial drum behind wrought-iron gates as far away from his centre of business as it was possible to get without being totally out of touch. London was still in his blood and the loot he made from his varied business interests flowed from the East End and North London into his bank account. From Tottenham to Whitechapel he had his fingers on the pulse of the less salubrious side of life. Prostitution, drugs, protection and property: they were all part of his book as he put it.
    The brick detached bungalow he called home had its own swimming pool and an acre of garden. Little stone lions sat