She shivered. She could smell the damp in Mallow Cottage now, imagined it oozing through the stone floor and running down the lime-washed walls, green and slimy like the stones in the burn. She went upstairs, pulled the duvet from her bed and took it down to the living room, poured another glass of wine, one more than her usual daily allowance. Curled up on the short sofa, her duvet tucked around her, she relived her memories of Jenny and Elias, grieving for both of them as best as she could. Not doing a good job of it, but at least making an attempt for the first time. She was still there when it was getting light, and by then the wine bottle was empty.

Jenny Lister had employed her. Connie had got into social work in her late twenties after a spell, ironically, working on a local paper. What had attracted her? The usual ideals, she supposed. The romantic notion that she might make a difference in people’s lives. Throughout the training she’d had an image of this family held together through her support: a tousle-haired boy and a girl with big sad eyes climbing on her knee, thanking her for helping their mummy and daddy. All crap of course, but she’d always needed a bit of praise to keep her going. Jenny had been quite good at the praise thing, at least at the beginning.

Once a month they’d have supervision sessions in Jenny’s office. Real coffee and nice biscuits – sometimes home-made. Jenny was one of those superwomen who baked at weekends and went to the theatre and read proper books. The sort of woman Frank’s new lover might grow into. And Connie would talk through her caseload. They were part of the child-protection team – the most exciting and dramatic area of social work. No incontinent old ladies or smelly, schizophrenic men for them. Jenny was in charge of fostering and adoption, of assessing and training prospective adoptive parents, but most of Connie’s work was following up kids on the ‘at risk’ register. Some of them would end up being fostered or adopted of course, but while Jenny chatted to nice middle-class foster parents in leafy suburbs on her home visits, Connie’s took her to the skankiest estates in the North-East. All dog shit and graffiti, and not a tousle-haired boy or sad-eyed girl in sight. Sometimes she thought Jenny didn’t have a clue what it was like.

At first during supervision Jenny said all the right things: ‘Sounds as if you’ve developed a really good relationship with that mum, and a great idea to go with her to the toddler group.’ And: ‘Absolutely right to insist on talking to the class teacher.’ So Connie would come out, high on caffeine and approval. Later, though, Connie’s caseload increased and the visits to families became more routine, so the clients sometimes blurred in her head – was Leanne the one with the headlice or was that the flat with the Rottweiler chained in the kitchen? Then Jenny frowned more often, and Connie found herself on the defensive. She always made sure her notes were in order – she’d been a journo, hadn’t she? She could tell a good story – but sometimes, visiting the flat where the teenage mother had moved in with that aggressive bloke with the weird stary eyes, she was overwhelmed with relief when there was no answer to her knocking. And even though she thought she’d caught a glimpse of a woman’s face at the bedroom window, she jotted No response in her diary and moved on to the next call of the day. She wasn’t paid enough to put up with a load of abuse. On this estate even the cops hunted in pairs.