‘We don’t want anyone seeing that,’ said Min in disgust before they set out in the old mud-spattered Land Rover.

Then it was Monday again, and more housework. It seemed to Dora that everything got covered in mud out here in the wilds. The yard was thick with it, and it all got trooped indoors on Wellington boots so that Dora felt she would forever be stuck in this hell of grim isolation, just swabbing the York stone floor clean on a never-ending loop – so that creepy Uncle Joe could tramp inside and make it bloody filthy again.

She paused by the sink, glancing at yesterday’s paper. National Service was going to be stopped in 1960, the Queen was on a state visit to Paris – and Singapore had been granted self-government. Same old rubbish, all of it. She dumped the paper in the wastebin, then irritably she threw open the back door to shake out the mat. Instantly she froze: there was that figure again, down by the gate, looking up at the house.

Something crazy took hold of Dora then. She knew it was Frank. He’d done for Dickie, and now he was going to do for her. That bastard! He’d tracked her down somehow and now he’d come here to do his worst. Well, fuck him! She could hear Aunt Min running her fancy Hoover in the front room. Snatching her coat from the hook, she turned to the kitchen drawer and took out the biggest carving knife she could lay hands on and tucked it into her pocket.

So he thought he could frighten her, did he?

She’d teach him.

She’d teach him good.

Dora ran out in the pouring rain in her carpet slippers, hardly noticing the rain or the mud that splashed up on her legs as she tore along the lane to the gate.

The figure saw her coming, and turned away.

Her blood boiling with rage, nothing in her mind except that this bastard had killed Dickie, she ran like a thing possessed and then she was on him, grabbing his arm, turning him back toward her.

‘You fucking bastard, what the hell are you doing here?’ she yelled into his face, and the knife was in her hand, she was going to do it, finish him once and for all.

But it wasn’t Frank.

It was her dad.

41

‘Christ! Dora!’

His eyes bulged with terror as his daughter stood there like an avenging angel, the knife held high above her head, ready to strike.

‘Dad?’ she gasped out, the downward sweep of her arm stopping instantly.

‘Jesus, what are you doing, girl?’ he asked, his voice trembling.

‘I thought you were . . .’ She couldn’t even say that arsehole Frank’s name. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

‘Put that down, for the love of God,’ he said, pushing her arm down to her side.

‘Was that you I saw out here before? It was, wasn’t it?’ Shaking with the aftermath of exertion, Dora tucked the knife back into the deep pocket of her overcoat. ‘Why didn’t you come up to the house instead of skulking around making me think all sorts?’