‘Look,’ said Mrs Foster, ‘have that packet, why don’t you? You can borrow my hairdryer. Try it. Oh – and don’t forget – unless you’re staying on, I’ll want your room empty by one.’

Up in her room, Dora took one last regretful look in the mirror and then she went to the sink in the corner and applied the colourant to her hair. It was messy – the brown gunk went everywhere – and she sat there for the requisite ten minutes with her head tingling. She left it on for fifteen, just to be on the safe side. Then her scalp started to sting. She rinsed the stuff off over and over again. Finally the water ran clear, so she wrapped a towel around her head and patted it dry. Then she took the towel off and stared at herself in the mirror.

Christ! What a difference.

From glamour girl she had gone to . . . well, she looked like a fucking librarian. Stick a pair of glasses on her and she’d be completely unrecognizable. Dora tugged a comb through her matted locks. Once her hair was untangled, she set to with Mrs Foster’s hairdryer and her own big circular brush, trying to get some semblance of order back into it.

Finally, she succeeded. Her mop of brunette hair was . . . well, it was actually pretty nice, now she was over the initial shock. Dora stared at herself in the mirror. Well, not a librarian maybe. An intelligent secretary perhaps. Of course, the make-up would have to be changed to suit it. Red lipstick or fuchsia pink instead of her usual soft peachy shade. Pinker blusher and more of it. And she could make her eyes smokier with some greyish shadow.

Glasses . . .

She could buy a pair of reading glasses in the local Timothy Whites, knock out the lenses, and her cash from the pawnbroker’s would pay for a different-coloured coat, just in case Donny had caught a glimpse of her when she fled out the back of the shop.

Dora sat down in front of the mirror again and looked at her reflection with a heavy sigh. She wasn’t Dora the Adored any more. Life had kicked her about, ruined her dreams of a happy future. Now she was in disguise, and Donny Maguire was closing in on her. And . . . gently, sadly, she smoothed a hand over the bulge of her stomach.

‘You in there, baby?’ she murmured. ‘Can you hear me?’

A wave of grief hit her then. She’d expected to miscarry after Frank’s beating, but she hadn’t. However, she was in no doubt that the baby had died that night, died right there inside her. The poor kid hadn’t moved, not even a little, since then. Ever since, she had expected the whole thing to come away, to flood out of her. But now she was pretty sure that her pregnancy would drag on to full term. Babies did get stillborn, and she guessed this poor little mite was fated to be one of those.