‘Australia. But we’re staying in Swindon at the moment.’

When he handed over the sheet of paper, she tucked it into her cardigan pocket and turned to leave.

‘You haven’t told us your name.’

She stared at him thoughtfully, then said, ‘Linda’.

He didn’t press for a surname. If she’d wanted them to know, she’d have given it to them. ‘When can I expect to hear from you?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They’re always busy at the centre after Christmas. Might take a few days.’

When they were in the car, he blew out his tension in a long, slow breath. ‘What do you make of that?’

Gemma was scowling down at her lap. ‘I don’t know, and I don’t want to talk about it till we find something out.’ Almost as if talking to herself, she added, ‘I don’t really know what I want any more, Dad.’

Neither did he. So he shut up and drove back to the hotel.

But he couldn’t get to sleep that night, because he kept going over everything the old lady had said, trying to work out what lay behind it, what ‘the centre’ was and who ‘they’ were. And how had a social worker got involved?

She’d said Gemma looked like Janey. That wasn’t something she could have made up. And said that he had a look of this Janey too.

Then it occurred to him. Stupid not to have thought of it before. The baby had been christened Catherine Jane.

Oh, hell. Suddenly he knew for certain that he really did have another daughter. And after a few long, quiet breaths, he accepted it in a way he hadn’t quite managed to before.

But what had happened to Dorothy? Had she really had such an unhappy life? And why was her husband in jail? He didn’t think they put men in jail simply for beating their wives, though maybe they should.

What else had the man done?

Chapter Fifteen

No jobs were offered to Angus over the Christmas holiday period, so he and Nell didn’t bother much with seasonal activities. They continued to work hard on the houses, both eager to get them finished. Already the insides looked brighter and more welcoming, as if they knew they were about to be occupied and loved again.

Which was a rather fanciful thing, Nell thought with a wry smile at herself. But then, if she could believe she was talking to family ghosts, why shouldn’t she have fanciful thoughts about other things?

The plumbers started work as soon as the Christmas festivities were over, doing the preliminary setting up even before New Year, as long as Angus guaranteed that the new bathroom suites would not be stolen or if they were he’d pay to replace them.

They both enjoyed seeing men bustling in and out of the houses with purposeful expressions on their faces. They seemed a nice bunch of guys.

Angus agreed to Nell’s suggestion of not fitting out the houses with any workshop changes the tenants might need till they were occupied, and she joined him in painting the rooms that wouldn’t need plumbing or wiring work.