She didn’t understand, but followed his eyes across the yard and saw, now, a building, a squat shed with rough wooden walls and, stuck on to them, an ugly, haphazard patchwork of photographs. She turned her gaze back to Martin, who folded his arms and smiled, cold-blooded, gloating. Alison had always loathed this man, but now her loathing fuelled a very pure, intense fury, and gave her strength, and purpose. She surged forwards, pushing through the crowd, running at the men in her path so they seemed to have no choice but to step out of her way, and she threw herself at Martin’s photographs in a frenzy, tearing at the pictures, ripping them down. There was some jeering from the men, some shouting, and a sort of scuffle over by the gates, but she didn’t look, she was intent on her task, and even Martin’s voice above the rest calling her bitch, and whore, didn’t matter – it only drove her on. Then an old man – he seemed too old for the steelworks though he had on the gear, the hard hat, the boots, the overalls – appeared at her side, and he didn’t say a word, only laid his hand on her shoulder for a few seconds, peacefully, as if he was calming an animal in distress. She paused under his kind gaze, and gathered herself, and he smiled at her and then began to help her, and together they started again, picking up the fallen photographs from the ground, pulling others from the walls, keeping them all face down and unseen, and between them it didn’t take long before she had all of them collected in a bunch, in one hand.

‘Thank you,’ she said to him, and he waited with her while she steadied her breathing. His compassion and kindness in this bear pit seemed nothing short of an act of salvation and, perhaps because of it, the baying crowd had dispersed now. Only Martin Baxter still stood there, glowering; but without an audience, his power seemed diminished.

‘Now then,’ the old man said. ‘You get yersen home.’

‘But I came to find Dave Todd. Do you know where he is?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t, flower,’ he said.

‘Somebody told me he’d be here.’

‘Aye, well, I don’t think you should go looking,’ he said. ‘This is no place for a lass. Go home.’

She looked at him, and felt the balm of his sanity. She nodded, he smiled, and she walked away, passing Martin Baxter without even a glance. As the distance between them grew, he continued to roar and bellow, chucking curses and insults after her, but she’d placed herself beyond his reach; he could see this, and it made him boil with helpless fury.

Her mother was in when Alison got back to the house. She was lying on the sofa with her face turned away from the room.