“At’eist t’rough and t’rough,” said Oonagh. “She t’ought it was all superstition. Her mammy was chapel, and Margot reacted against it. The church kept women down, was the way Margot looked at it, and she said to me, ‘If there’s a God, why’d my daddy, who’s a good man, have to fall off that step-ladder? Why’s my family have to live the life we’ve had?’ Well, Margot couldn’t tell me anything about hypocrisy and religion I didn’t already know. I’d left the Catholics by then. Doctrine of papal infallibility. No contraception, no matter if women died having their eleventh.

“My own mammy t’ought she was God’s deputy on this earth, so she did, and some of the nuns at my school were pure bitches. Sister Mary Theresa—see there?” said Oonagh, pushing her fringe out of her eyes to reveal a scar the size of a five-pence piece. “She hit me round the head wit’ a metal set square. Blood everywhere. ‘I expect you deserved it,’ Mammy said.

“Now, I’ll tell you who reminded me of Sister Mary Theresa,” said Oonagh. “Would she have been the nurse, now? The older one at Margot’s practice?”

“D’you mean Dorothy?”

“She was a widow, the one I’m t’inking of.”

“Yes, that was Dorothy, the secretary.”

“Spit image of Sister Mary Theresa, the eyes on her,” said Oonagh. “I got cornered by her at the party. They’re drawn to the church, women like dat. Nearly every congregation’s got a couple. Outward observance, inward poison. They say the words, you know ‘Father forgive me, for I have sinned,’ but the Dorothys of this world, they don’t believe they can sin, not really.

“One t’ing life’s taught me: where there’s no capacity for joy, there’s no capacity for goodness,” said Oonagh Kennedy. “She had it in for Margot, that Dorothy. I told her I was Margot’s best friend and she started asking nosy questions. How we’d met. Boyfriends. How Margot met Roy. None of her bloody business.

“Then she started talking about the old doctor, whatever his name was. There was a bit of Sister Mary Theresa in her, all right, but dat woman’s god was sitting a desk away. I told Margot about the talk I’d had with her afterward, and Margot said I was right. Dorothy was a mean one.”

“It was Dorothy’s son who wrote the book about Margot,” said Robin.

“Was it her son?” gasped Oonagh. “Was it? Well, there you are. Nasty pieces of work, the pair of them.”

“When was the last time you saw Margot?” Robin asked.

“Exactly two weeks before the night she disappeared. We met at The T’ree Kings then, too. Six o’clock, I had a night off from the club. There were a couple of bars nearer the practice, but she didn’t want to run into anyone she worked with after hours.”

“Can you remember what you talked about that night?”

“I remember everyt’ing,” said Oonagh. “You’ll think that’s an exaggeration, but it isn’t. I started by giving her a row about going for a drink with Satchwell, which she’d told me about on the phone. They’d bumped into each other in the street.

“She said he seemed different to how he used to be and that worried me, I’m not going to lie. She wasn’t built for an affair, but she was unhappy. Once we got to the pub, she told me the whole story. He’d asked to see her again and she’d said no. I believed her, and I’ll tell you why: because she looked so damn miserable that she’d said no.

“She seemed worn down, that night. Unhappy like I’d never seen her before. She said Roy hadn’t been talking to her for ten days when she ran into Satchwell. They’d had a row about his mother walking in and out of the house like she owned it. Margot wanted to redecorate, but Roy said it’d break his mother’s heart if they got rid of any of the things his father loved. So there was Margot, an outsider in her own home, not even allowed to change the ornaments.

“Margot said she’d had a line from Court and Spark running through her head, all day long. Joni Mitchell’s album, Court and Spark,” she said, seeing Robin’s puzzlement. “That was Margot’s religion. Joni Mitchell. She raved about that album. It was a line from the song ‘The Same Situation.’ ‘Caught in my struggle for higher achievements, And my search for love that don’t seem to cease.’ I can’t listen to that album to this day. It’s too painful.

“She told me she went straight home after havin’ the drink with Paul and told Roy what had just happened. I think partly she felt guilty about going for the drink, but partly she wanted to jolt him awake. She was tired and miserable and she was saying someone else wanted me, once. Human nature, isn’t it? ‘Wake up,’ she was saying. ‘You can’t just ignore me and cut me off and refuse all compromises. I can’t live like this.’

“Well, being Roy, he wasn’t the type to fire up and start throwing things. I t’ink she’d have found it easier if he had. He was furious, all right, but he showed it by gettin’ colder and more silent.

“I don’t t’ink he said another word to her until the day she disappeared. She told me on the phone when we arranged the drink for the eleventh, ‘I’m still living in a silent order.’ She sounded hopeless. I remember thinking then, ‘She’s going to leave him.’

“When we met in the pub that last time, I said to her, ‘Satchwell’s not the answer to whatever’s wrong with you and Roy.’

‘We talked about Anna, too. Margot would’ve given anything to take a year or two out and concentrate on Anna, and that’s exactly what Roy and his mother had wanted her to do, stay home with Anna and forget working.

“But she couldn’t. She was still supporting her parents. Her mammy was ill now, and Margot didn’t want her out cleaning houses any more. While she was working, she could look Roy in the face and justify all the money she was giving them, but his mother wasn’t going to let her precious, delicate son work for the benefit of a pair o’ chain-smokin’ Eastenders.”

“Can you remember anything else you talked about?”

“We talked about the Playboy Club, because I was leaving. I’d got my flat and I was thinking of going and studying. Margot was all for it. What I didn’t tell her was, I was thinking of a t’eology degree, what with her attitude to religion.

“We talked about politics, a bit. We both wanted Wilson to win the election. And I told her I was worried I still hadn’t found The One. Over t’irty, I was. That was old, then, for finding a husband.

“Before we said goodbye that night, I said, ‘Don’t forget, there’s always a spare room at my place. Room for a bassinet, as well.’”

Tears welled again in Oonagh’s eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She picked up her napkin and pressed it to her face.

“I’m sorry. Forty years ago, but it feels like yesterday. They don’t disappear, the dead. It’d be easier if they did. I can see her so clearly. If she walked up those steps now, part of me wouldn’t be surprised. She was such a vivid person. For her to disappear like that, just thin air where she was…”