Every time Theresa thought she was making progress, she would lose her balance and roll away from the hatch.

Marcel was now tugging at her skirt, trying to pull it up, stroking the naked flesh of her legs.

The boat started jerking up and down while still rolling.

Was it sinking? What was going on? Had they been sucked into a whirlpool? Would she now drown, going down with the ship, like Rebecca in that book?

Marcel was no longer trying to grope her. She looked down and could see why. He was fumbling at his fly buttons.

Twisting her body, Theresa curled into a foetal position, then suddenly stretched out and kicked the hatch open. She turned around once more and squeezed herself through the hole leading to the open air. On hands and knees, she scrambled up the step on to the deck. She lay panting for a second; then, pulling down her clothing, she clambered to her feet. Using the wheel to get herself upright, Theresa came face to face with two men.

‘Madame? Avez-vous besoin de notre aide?’

Two burly, helmeted coastguards stood on the rocking deck of Marcel’s craft.

Theresa saw the slanting French flag on the grey side of the lifeboat. She looked up. The rest of the brigade who’d come to save her were standing ready with a ladder.

‘Oui.’ Theresa collapsed into their arms. ‘Oui! Please, please help me. S’il vous plaît.’

Twenty-six

TWENTY-SIX

Sally’s boat, complete with three passengers, limped towards the shore. A welcoming party was waiting on the beach. The whole team was running towards them, bearing gold emergency blankets, hand warmers and hot drinks.

Sally saw the whirring blue lights of an ambulance waiting on the road above the shore.

‘The poor old boy has been so ill,’ she told one of the paramedics who came down to meet them.

Face white as paper, Eggy climbed out of the boat and the paramedic steered him up towards the ambulance.

Other paramedics rushed down to check out the two shivering children.

While they were rowing against the raging sea, with intermittent help from a spluttering outboard motor, the kids had told Sally that neither of them had a desire ever to run away again. All they wanted now was the warmth of a house, a home. They even told Sally, who kept them talking all the way as a protection against hypothermia, that if they had the liberty to see each other from time to time, they’d be good and go back to school in London.

Job well done, thought Sally.

More than this, Neil told her that he was going to write to the judge who saw to his parents’ divorce and tell him that he had made a mistake because he really wanted to live in London, not on a boat. Never again on a boat.