‘He won’t be in until lunchtime, you know that.’

Dora snapped shut her suitcase. Then still in her wet coat and with her legs and slippers spattered with mud, she sat down on the bed. ‘Right. I’ll wait for him, then.’

Either that, or she would have to walk to the main road and wait hours for the bus, and suddenly she felt nervous of the idea of standing up on the road all alone, with the wind whipping and howling over the dales. God knows who might see her there. So she had to wait here. She didn’t know if she had time to do that, but right now she couldn’t face the alternative.

Donny Maguire was gunning for her. And Bruno too.

Aunt Min left her there in the bedroom and she sat impatiently until Uncle Joe rolled up in his battered old Land Rover. Then Dora hiked downstairs, put on her shoes, went out into the rainy day and clambered up into the passenger seat. Uncle Joe got in. He sat there, looking at her.

‘You know what, girl? Being as you’re so free with your favours,’ he said, ‘I thought you’d save some for me. I’d have looked after you. Seen you were all right.’

Dora turned her head and gaped at him, wondering at the sheer brass-faced front of men. He was pot-bellied, thin-haired, ugly as sin and old enough to be her granddad, and he was still going to try it on – just because she’d got herself pregnant, he thought she was fair game for any bloody thing, and that was what was bothering him. Not her going on somewhere, being alone, and having to cope – no. Her sainted God-bothering uncle was worried about his failure to get his end away with his own niece; that was the total sum of his concerns.

‘You’re a bastard,’ said Dora succinctly. ‘All men are bloody bastards, and you’re no exception.’

‘You’ve no call to give me lip,’ he complained. ‘I did you a ruddy favour taking you in at all.’

‘Thanks. I thought of that when you came into my room with your cock out. That you were doing me a huge favour, and I ought to be grateful.’

‘You little . . .’ He loomed over her suddenly, hand raised, face twisted with temper. ‘Think you’re special, don’t you. Just cos you’re good to look at, you think you’re better than everyone else, even if you have proved yourself nothing but a whore.’

‘Are you going to drive this bloody thing, or not?’ asked Dora.

Joe’s eyes blazed with rage. Abruptly he leaned over and pushed her door open, admitting a gust of freezing air.

‘I ain’t taking you nowhere,’ he spat out. ‘You can bloody walk for all I care. Now get.’

Dora didn’t bother arguing. She got hold of her suitcase and hefted it out into the mud and rain, then she followed on herself. Uncle Joe got out of the car and went indoors, slamming the front door after him. Dora looked at the farmhouse, and it seemed to look back at her, its windows like reproachful, all-seeing eyes. Gawd, she’d hated that place. And the people in it.