Although he had only been there for a few days he had already formed the opinion that not everything was strictly above board and he had the feeling that both the matron and the doctor who had been there before him were in on it.

She seemed incapable of answering him and after glaring at her, he wrapped Ruby in the towel that one of the nurses had given him and scooped her back into his arms saying, ‘Show me where her room is and think yourself lucky that you didn’t drown her or some of you might be facing a murder charge.’

Nurse Keen paled to the colour of putty and without a word led him out onto the landing to Ruby’s room, while another nurse meekly took Dilys back to hers.

When he saw the state of Ruby’s cell, his lip curled with contempt but he said nothing as he gently laid her on the bed. ‘Have some hot tea sent in here immediately and some dry clothes for her,’ he ordered the matron, who was hovering at the door.

With an indignant sniff the woman stormed from the room, although she didn’t dare disobey him. Young he might be but he seemed to know what he was about and she was afraid that the little racket she had run profitably for so many years was about to blow up in her face.

Ruby lay like a rag doll until the drinks arrived and George held her head while she sipped at the hot, sweet tea, and finally her heartbeat returned to a steadier rhythm.

‘Better?’

She nodded gratefully as she sat up and he turned his head while she slipped a dry coarse gown over her head.

‘Good, so do you feel able to tell me what’s happened and how you ended up here? We were all so worried when Oscar told us that you’d gone missing.’

And so, slowly and painfully, Ruby told him the whole sorry tale of her search for her mother and how Miranda had tricked her.

‘The little bitch! I never did like her,’ he snarled as he paced up and down the tiny confines of the cell, his expression grim. ‘But never fear, I’m going to go down now and look at your committal notes and then somehow we’ll get you out of here.’

‘And will you look at Dilys’s notes too?’ she pleaded. She went on to tell him Dilys’s story and by the time she was done, he was shaking his head in bewilderment.