She had first noticed the terraced shop near the library in the centre of Newcastle a couple of days after she’d returned from Sunderland. She had been in the area because Bridget had told her that Daniel Bell was being brought up before the magistrate, and she had gone along to the court to see what transpired. She had been more than a little apprehensive, but had needed to be sure he’d be put away, if not for his crimes against Ellie for which there was no proof, then for the possession of the drugs the police had found when they had searched the house after she had given them Daniel’s address.

She had got something of a shock when she had seen him in the dock. He had a black patch over one eye from which a livid red scar ran down across his cheek, puckering the skin. Daisy had told her about the injury, of course, but even so it had given her a start. Not that she regretted her action, not in the least; he deserved that and more for what he had put Ellie through. He had been impeccably dressed in a dark grey suit and white shirt and striped tie, and his general demeanour as he’d stood there had been meek and mild. His counsel had insisted that the charges against his client were a terrible mistake, and that the person responsible for the drugs being in the house was a man called Howard Riley. His client, the defending counsel had said, had given this man a room in his house out of the kindness of his heart and had been quite unaware of what went on in it, and as it had been at the top of the house he had had no reason to go there himself. He had been as horrified as anyone at what this rogue, Riley – who incidentally had fled who knew where – had been about. Mr Bell strenuously denied any involvement in any wrongdoing and it was this same Mr Riley, an aggressive, violent individual, who had given poor Mr Bell the recent injury to his face when he had told Mr Riley to find other lodgings the day before the police had come to the house.

Many eyes had turned towards poor Mr Bell who had suffered such abuse from nasty Mr Riley, and for the first time Daniel had raised his downcast gaze and glanced around the court sorrowfully. It was at this moment he realized Ruby was present and the transformation in him had been immediate and ferocious. Far from being the pitiful wretched victim of a cruel misunderstanding eliciting sympathy, he had revealed who he really was, screaming obscenities and threats, the main thrust of which was that he would get even with her if it was the last thing he did for what she had done to his face.