Men were dashing by out in the corridor now, looking left and right. They peered in at her and the gent, then dashed on.

‘There’s a drunk a few compartments up that way,’ said Dora. ‘Making a thorough nuisance of himself, he was, it’s quite disgusting, don’t you think, in the middle of the day? I saw him pull the cord and stop the train. I don’t know why he did it. He was out of his mind on booze.’

‘Disgraceful,’ said the old man. ‘People these days.’

‘Please may I stay here with you? It was quite frightening. Look, I’m still shaking.’ Dora held out one trembling hand. She really was.

‘Don’t worry, m’dear, the guards’ll sort him out,’ said the man. ‘You stay here with me, you’ll be perfectly safe.’

Large commotion down the corridor now. Dora thought she heard Donny’s voice above the others, shouting about a girl, where was the girl, and that he was a police officer, look, he’d show them, only he couldn’t find his bloody warrant card, he didn’t pull the bloody cord, where was the girl?

‘Shall I . . . ?’ volunteered the old gent, indicating the door.

Dora nodded, biting her lip.

The old man went to the door, slid it back, looked out. Instantly the volume of the shouts went up a notch.

‘Look, shut up, sonny Jim,’ one of the men was saying loudly. ‘Did that crack on the head fry your brains? What the fuck you want to pull the damned cord for, you moron?’

‘I think he’s been drinking,’ the old man helpfully called along the corridor to the guards.

‘Yeah, he stinks of it. Don’t worry, sir, we’ll sort this out,’ called back someone, and more men came along the corridor to help restrain the drunken stupid vandal who’d pulled the cord and brought the train to a standstill.

‘People these days,’ the old man repeated, and slid the door closed on all the noise and came back and sat beside Dora. ‘Are you all right now, m’dear?’ he asked, concerned.

‘Yes. Thank you,’ said Dora, listening with malicious glee as a mob of men carted Donny Maguire, still bleeding and shouting, off to the guard’s van at the rear of the train.

51

Dora didn’t linger in Blackpool. Knowing that Maguire was quite smart enough to extricate himself from a tricky situation in short order, and knowing too, thanks to him, that she had the Yorkshire police on her tail, she decided to hug the west coast. She caught a bus from the centre of town, first to Wigan and then to a small charmless town outside Liverpool.

Once there, she counted out her cash, which was dwindling faster than she would have liked, and booked into a bed and breakfast near the shops, then went off to Timothy Whites and bought another pack of Toni hair colour, this time in a brilliant shade of red. She also acquired a pair of tortoiseshell-framed glasses, and an amber-toned lipstick. Then she bought a couple of cheap fern-coloured dresses in one of the boutiques, a size too big for her to accommodate her bump, then went back to the B & B to effect the transformation.