Briony sat in her bedroom with a large glass of brandy in her hand and a cigarette dangling from her lips. She looked ugly and full of hate. Since finding out about Henry Dumas, she had felt a canker growing inside her. With every second the clock ticked, the feeling grew. She was now full of it, it consumed her until she was ready to burst. Everything she had ever suffered at his hands was there in front of her eyes in crystal clear detail. His flabby body, his roughness as he took her, the putrid stench of his breath on her face.

She’d been a child, and she had thought as a child. She had thought to save herself and her family from poverty by letting him have her. But he should have known how wrong he was, her father should have known! How could she have realised what she was doing? All she had wanted was the warmth of the house, the good food, the cleanliness. She had wanted it for herself and her sisters, and Dumas had made use of that. But what a price she had paid, still paid.

He had taken her child, and before that he had taken her very heart. Had helped strangle every natural instinct she possessed. Until now she was empty.

But she would pay him back. Dear God, she would pay him back tenfold, a hundredfold for what he had done to her. What he had tried to do to her.

She heard Tommy enter the house and held her breath. The front door was banged hard; she could even hear him throw his coat across the banisters, the buttons making a snapping sound as they hit the wooden balustrade. She heard him stamping up the stairs, heard Mrs Horlock’s light tread on the landing and her voice as she spoke to him.

‘What’s all the noise? What’s going on? Briony’s not fit for man or beast, like a madwoman ...’

‘GO TO BLEEDING BED!’ Tommy’s voice echoed around the hallway, sending the old woman scurrying away.

Briony tensed in her chair, waiting for the onslaught that was to come. Tommy opened the bedroom door and it banged against the dado rail with a sickening thump.

She watched him as he walked into the room, his face set, his hair standing on end as if he had received a massive shock.

‘You mare! You showed me up tonight, Briony. Never have I felt so embarrassed, so small. You charged in there like I didn’t mean anything, I was nothing! I don’t work for you, madam, let’s get that straight. We’re a partnership! A partnership. I ain’t your fucking lackey, I ain’t no one’s lackey.’