Patrick becomes a regular feature of the couple’s lives, and still Marion doesn’t suspect … or does she? Tom has a naive appreciation for art that belies his tough rugged exterior Marion goes along with it. One day, Tom takes Marion to the museum to meet a friend of his, Patrick, one of the curators. They become a couple, but their relationship is not exactly romantic. Marion is now a school teacher, and strikes up a friendship with Tom who offers to teach her to swim. It’s Brighton in the 1950s, and Thomas – Tom, has returned from his National Service to become a trainee policeman. As the book opens, Marion is setting down her story, telling it for Patrick who has had a stroke. His chin had a scar on one side – just a small dent, like a fingerprint in plasticine – and he was wearing a sneer, which even then I knew he was doing deliberately, because he though he should, because it made him look like a Ted but the whole effect of this boy leaning on the door frame and looking at me with his blue eyes – small eyes, set deep – made me blush so hard that I reached down and plunged my fingers back into the dusty fur around Midnight’s ears and focused my eyes on the floor. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen – barely a year older than me but his shoulders were already wide and there was a dark hollow at the base of his neck.

He was leaning in the doorway with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbows, and I noticed the fine lines of muscle in his forearms.

Firstly Marion, who fell for Tom, the brother of her best friend, the first time she saw him … This is a story of two people who love the same man.

My policeman book original cover