Mother nodded and clasped her hands together on her lap. She sat up straighter and raised her chin. ‘If I hadn’t taken her away from that evil man, I just know she’d have ended up dead – or worse.’

‘How can anything be worse than dead?’ I said.

Mother snorted, ‘Believe me, people can suffer a lot more if they are kept alive.’

A distant smile touched her lips. A smile that didn’t make sense, given what she had said.

I ignored an unpleasant twisting sensation in my tummy and asked, ‘How did you know Clarabelle’s father was hurting her? Did you see?’

Mother looked off into the distance, perhaps into a memory. ‘I’m very intuitive, Mirabelle, and when I saw the way he dragged her around the supermarket, I just knew. You know what I mean?’

I nodded, trying to understand, telling myself to look up the word ‘intuitive’ in Mother’s mammoth dictionary later.

‘She reminded me ever so much of you when you were little, and I knew it was up to me to rescue her.’

‘What about the police? Did you tell them?’ I said, thinking about Sherlock Holmes. If there was a policeman like that, I was sure he’d be able to catch a horrible man like Clarabelle’s father.

Mother shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t do anything. It takes years and years for the police to find all the evidence they need to build a case against bad parents, and by then it’s too late.’

‘What about her mother?’

Mother frowned. ‘The mother’s irrelevant. All that matters is that I’ve taken her away from that evil man. I can take care of her properly.’

‘Like you take care of me?’

‘Exactly,’ Mother stood up and grabbed my wrist. ‘Look, I’ll show you.’

I let her pull me out of the bedroom and across the landing. She released her grip on my wrist and wrestled with the keys at her belt. I watched her unlock the door, suddenly nervous. Did I want to see what was in that room?

But Mother closed the door behind her, careful not to let me look inside. She came out with a sleeping Clarabelle in her arms. Mother had changed her into one of my old white nightdresses. A bubble of envy surfaced in my heart and floated for a second until stronger feelings of pity and sorrow pushed themselves forward and popped the hateful bubble. The little girl was a victim. An innocent, helpless child who had done nothing to deserve the evil actions of the person she probably trusted more than anyone else in the world. I still wondered about Clarabelle’s mother, but I didn’t say anything.