‘Not now,’ Ruth was saying. ‘This is no time for fainting fits.’

Mary leaned against Ruth, taking a moment to steady herself.

‘I was so sure …’

‘Yes. Well. She’s not here and we’re wasting time.’

Mary nodded and turned back to the empty doorway.

But something stopped her.

Later, she never knew what. A sound? An instinct? The tug of an invisible maternal cord? She turned back to the window and moved towards it. Not a window, a space where a window would at some point be. A long, low window, just a couple of inches from the floor. Outside there was scaffolding, with a timber deck for the now-gone builders to access the upper part of the house.

And something else.

Huddled on the timber floor, like a bundle of rags.

Lily.

Holding her breath, Mary stepped out on to the scaffolding and crouched to scoop up her daughter. Lily’s eyes were closed, her face pale, her limbs slack. White noise roared in Mary’s ears as her hand covered her daughter’s face, chest, wrists, neck; checking, checking, not able to think about what she was checking.

Movement. A twitch of a leg, a turn of a lip. Enough to tell her Lily was alive. Asleep. But alive.

‘She might be injured, stay there,’ Ruth was saying. She climbed out on to the scaffolding too, and on some level Mary wondered if it was safe, if it could bear their weight, but she couldn’t move, not yet.

‘Let me have a look.’ Ruth hunkered down, surprisingly nimble, and began running her hands over Lily, checking limbs, neck, forehead. It was then Mary noticed that Lily’s face was streaked with tears. Her poor child. Had she climbed out of the window on her own? Who had locked her in the room? She must have been terrified. Mary blinked and hot tears spilled out, a mix of horror and fury and relief. She touched her daughter’s cheek, and now Lily’s eyes fluttered open.

‘Mama,’ was all she said, curling on her side, sinking her little body further into her mother’s lap.

‘Just a minute, I’m nearly done,’ Ruth said brusquely, lifting Lily’s t-shirt, checking her front and then turning her over. The bruises on her back were dark purple now.

Silence.

A thousand explanations ran through Mary’s head as her face flushed red but no words came out.

‘I don’t think these are from today,’ Ruth said quietly, quashing every one of the thousand explanations.

‘I …’

‘Mary.’

‘I know. I have to do something. And I will. I’ll get her away,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll leave together. Tonight.’

‘He’ll stop you.’

‘I … but I have to try.’

‘Even if you manage to sneak out of the house, he’ll find you. He’ll chase you for the rest of your lives.’

‘We can hide.’

‘Where? Mary, if Robbie knows you took Lily; if he knows you two are out there together, he’ll dedicate the rest of his life to finding you.’

‘But what else can I do?’