Her disgust knew no bounds. That Kerry, her talented, beautiful Kerry, could sink to that level, broke her heart. Jumping from her seat, she pushed and pulled poor Rosalee roughly as she got her coat on her, dragging the protesting girl from the house on their way to Briony’s.

She would know what to do.

Andrew McLawson held Eileen’s hand. He had taken her pulse, checked her over physically, and now he sat looking at her, puzzled.

‘Are you going to talk to me, Eileen?’

She opened her eyes and smiled tremulously.

‘Come on, tell me about yourself.’

He watched the changing expressions on her face and sighed. He had seen people like her before though not many times, he admitted. But he had seen the same haunted look, the same fathomless eyes, the same symptoms. Yet this wasn’t a family who would terrorise a child, or at least they didn’t give that impression. He had a girl at his nursing home, Sea View, who was the product of a very Victorian father and a weak-kneed mother. The girl had had all the life drained from her. The lust for life, the wanting of it, had been gradually beaten from her. Oh, not with fists, though this girl was still carrying the remainder of bruising on her arms and back, but with words and harsh behaviour. She’d been told she was worthless, and now she believed it. Quiet as a church mouse, she sat out her days, looking at the sea and drinking tea, constantly drinking tea, her hands clumsy and shaking. McLawson would lay money that the father had sexually abused the girl, he knew she wasn’t a virgin. But the father was a man of wealth and position, and the doctor was employed to hide people’s mistakes. ‘Bad nerves’ had become a catchall phrase for all the illness of the mind. At Sea View he had men, young virile men, who were still shell shocked from the war. He also cared for old spinster aunts or eccentrics without the private means to keep themselves who were shunted into homes like his by their uncaring relatives. Now he was to have this girl. The Cavanaghs were working-class, the voices betrayed that. But Briony Cavanagh seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of money, judging from this house. He shrugged. How she’d come about it was her business, but her concern for her sister was genuine enough. It was that concern which had prompted him to leave Sea View and travel up to this house to see Eileen O’Malley. Now he knew he would take her. She was like a poor broken bird. He’d take her to the home and try to look after her, but there was something her sister should know first.

Briony walked into the room. ‘Everything all right, Doctor?’