Emma was ashen. She had not been able to drink the tea, although she had tried, so as not to be ungrateful.

They waited through the night in the white corridor.

At five am, the harassed doctor appeared and came towards them slowly.

Emma stood up and reached convulsively for Rachaela’s hand.

The doctor frowned. He said that the latest measures had been a success, that Ruth’s temperature had dropped and her breathing loosened. In half an hour Rachaela would be able to go and sit with her.

Emma cried again. She thanked the doctor so earnestly his mundane face lit up with the impatient awareness of a saviour.

Rachaela was shepherded into the room to sit with her pale, saved child. She sat down. She had wanted and hoped that Ruth would die. There was no reason to lie to herself. Is this what her own mother had wanted? Had she looked at the living Rachaela as now Rachaela looked at Ruth?

Chapter Twelve

The child in the snow:

It lay around her like a Christmas card. The street was transformed by whiteness, fluffy and fresh on the buildings. Already there were trampled paths of icy black. The child walked along one of these, towards the house.

She was thin, a small seven-year-old, with two thick plaits of raven black caught in blue toggles. She wore a red woolly hat and scarf and gloves, which Emma had bought her, and a dark belted mac. Her feet were in little red boots that matched the hat, also Emma’s idea. She had a satchel. Just another home-going child from the primary school.

Rachaela watched her from the kitchen window of the flat. It was a coincidence she was here at the moment the child turned on to the street.

At first Emma had taken Ruth to the school twice a day, and fetched her home at midday and at night. But most of the other children came and went alone. There were no main roads to cross, for a child it was a quarter-of-an-hour walk.

Ruth would almost certainly not come up to the flat. She would not expect Rachaela to be home in any case and always had her lunch and tea with Emma.

Today Jonquil had suggested that Isis Books be shut at three o’clock, due to the snow. The pipes had frozen and the tiny electric fire did not do much good. A male plumber would have to see to the pipes. This had annoyed Jonquil and set her steel earring swinging with temper.

Rachaela saw Ruth come to the door of the flats and disappear. She had a key.