She’d do better on her own.

Picking up her case, Dora started walking.

43

Aching and cold, she stood for an hour up on the main road, where the wind whipped at her cruelly. Finally she sat down on her case, thinking no, the bloody bus wasn’t coming. A couple of cars passed her by, and each time she kept her head down, didn’t dare look at the occupants. She thought of trying to flag one down, but what if it was Donny in there? Or, even worse, Bruno, come to take her back to Frank, and if that happened then Christ knew what would become of her. Terror gripped her as each of the cars zipped by. But they didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down.

She was still safe.

For now.

Then suddenly, away in the distance, there the bus was, looming closer all the while.

Thank God.

Shivering, she boarded it, paid the fare into Harrogate. It was warm on the bus, pleasant. She sat and watched the scenery pass by her window through the blur of the rain, but then they reached the town and she had to get off again and stand there wondering what to do next. The first and most obvious problem was money; she hadn’t much left.

Clutching her suitcase, she stopped for a brew and a slice of simnel cake in a corner tea shop called Betty’s. She’d been in there before, with Aunt Min. She had marvelled then at the genteel nature of this pretty little town with its expensive shops and charming arcades.

Sitting there now, she looked out at the moving mass of humanity, bustling around with umbrellas and sloshing through the pouring rain in search of Easter eggs and hot cross buns. All of them with places to go, things to be done. But what did she have? She was homeless, on her uppers – and now Donny Maguire was after her for something that was simply not her fault. Dora sat there with the last cold leavings of her tea and smoothed a gentle hand over the unmoving bump of her stomach. Even the baby had given up on her.

Real, gut-churning fear gripped her then. Donny Maguire and Bruno Graves were after her and she wasn’t fit for any sort of chase. Donny knew she was in Yorkshire, and even now he might be at Aunt Min’s, and she didn’t think Min or Joe would display any loyalty to their niece, not for a minute. She’d been pretty rotten to them in return for their bed and board. She thought of Uncle Joe, loitering half-naked around her bedroom door. Of Min’s growing coldness to her because she knew damned well what Joe had on his mind.

Dora took a deep, calming breath. She was still alive. Still here. She was going to have to be smart. Work a way out of the situation she’d found herself in. Dora finished her tea and then set off out around the town again, searching for the symbol of three brass spheres. She wasn’t hopeful of finding one here, the town seemed too prosperous, but eventually she did, down a tiny high-sided back street.