The fear of being pursued was inside her every time she went out, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been and she’d be informed when they let her husband out of jail. Only he’d not be her husband by then.

Would he accept that? She didn’t know.

In the meantime she had things to get on with. She thought she’d done the right thing in arranging to take Adam to meet Janey, hoped she had.

And she was going to book into a daytime class about using computers. She must be the only person her age who’d never been near them. Never been allowed to go near them.

What a fool she’d been! She should have got help much sooner.

Adam sat on in the café, signalling that he wanted a refill then going over the conversation in his mind.

How old Hope looked! She could almost have been his mother and the signs of a hard life were written all too clearly on her face. He had to warn Gemma not to stare at her. He had to warn his outspoken daughter to tread carefully with Janey, too, and not to blurt anything out which might hurt her sister.

He wished he could let Judith know how badly her meddling had impacted on poor Hope’s life. And Janey’s from the sound of it. That upset him.

But he doubted Judith would have cared about that. She’d grown very selfish as she grew older. He hoped to help Gemma grow up with a more compassionate attitude towards other human beings, especially those struggling with huge personal problems, as poor Hope was.

On that thought he got out his phone and called his daughter.

‘How did it go, Dad?’

‘Quite well, I think. We’re going round to see Janey this evening, so Hope can’t have hated the sight of me today. Is that all right with you?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘I’ll be home in about an hour. I’m going to have a stroll round the town centre. I need to get some exercise and there are some interesting buildings here. They haven’t knocked all the older ones down as they have in some places.’

He picked up a local paper to read while he finished his coffee then went outside and turned left up High Street. When he saw a street sign saying Peppercorn Street he stopped, wondering what had made them choose that name. On impulse he turned left again and strolled up it.

The first houses were mainly small blocks of flats, looking to be in quite good condition. Some were newbuilds and others conversions of large, nineteenth-century houses.

As he walked on up the slight slope, keeping to the right side of the street, the houses were mostly semi-detached family dwellings. He stopped again at a small side street called Cinnamon Gardens, grimacing. Not in keeping with the rest of the street. Tiny box-like bungalows, the sort provided for older people. These were rather meanly built, in his opinion, but there you were. From what he’d seen, most modern buildings in the UK seemed smaller than those in Australia, especially those they called ‘newbuilds’.