I left my seat, wanting to hold on to his arm and stop him going anywhere. I ended up hovering in front of him. ‘Don’t,’ I managed to say. Floods of words built up in my mouth and even those couldn’t convey what I feared, but all I could utter was a choked monosyllable.

Ted’s eyebrow lifted and he gave me a quelling stare. ‘Don’t make a fuss, Sadie. It’s all sorted out. You’re going on holiday, to the south of France. What do you think of that?’

I’d never been abroad. I stared at him, mistrust forming like ice at the margins of a winter pond. ‘Aren’t you coming too? I don’t want to go without you.’

He frowned. ‘I can’t. I told you, I’ve got business to do. But you’ll be staying with a friend of mine. You’ll have a good time, Sadie, believe me.’

I wanted to believe what he told me but I didn’t trust him. I tried to mount an offensive. ‘Who will I be staying with? Auntie who?’

‘Madame Lesert,’ he answered coldly and I withered under his glare.

I knew I’d never be a match for Ted because he had all the power. If I wanted anything from him, even money for my bus fares and food, let alone a new dress, I had to play by his rules and that meant doing what I was told. ‘How long am I going for?’ I whispered.

‘I don’t know yet. It could be just a couple of weeks, or it may be longer.’

He would have been hoping for a not guilty verdict, I now realised. Ever the optimist, my father.

So I went to France, the summer I was fifteen and stayed there for three months.

Angela saw me off.

Ted said a distracted goodbye earlier in the day as he detached my hands from the sleeves of his blazer. ‘Don’t be silly, Sadie. You’re going on a top-notch trip that plenty of girls would give their eye-teeth for, and you’re making a fuss about leaving home.’

I didn’t care if I never saw Dorset Avenue again. It was Ted I was afraid to leave. There was no date fixed for me to come back and so I didn’t know when I would see him again. It was like the other time, the one we now didn’t mention, and I couldn’t refer to that because it would only make him angry and he might be even less inclined to bring me back from the mysterious French exile.