Donny then came to where Dora stood and grabbed her arm. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘Come on where?’

‘We’re not hanging around here to start giving explanations to the fire blokes or the Yorkshire boys.’ He stopped and stared into her eyes. ‘What, you worried about Bruno Graves? Don’t be. He set that fire and the plan was for you to go straight to hell in it. You’re lucky I was on his tail. Or it would have been the worse for you, girl, I’m telling you.’

Dora gasped down a breath. ‘I think the baby’s coming,’ she said.

‘We’ll talk about it in the car.’ He started hauling her by the arm toward the lane. She could see a car parked up there, but didn’t feel like she could make it that far.

‘I can’t . . .’ she groaned.

Donny stopped walking and stared at her. Behind them, the snug windows exploded. Dora flinched.

‘You serious?’ he asked. ‘You’re not bullshitting me? It’s coming right now?’

Dora could only nod.

‘We’d better get you to hospital then.’ He started walking again.

‘I don’t think we’ll make it,’ said Dora.

‘Sure we will.’

No we won’t.

He started hustling her along again, and somehow Dora managed to make it to the car. She could feel the baby’s head right there, ready to come. No way would they make the hospital.

Her poor dead baby.

‘I’ll get in the back,’ said Dora, shuddering and shivering. ‘I can lie down then.’

Donny didn’t argue. He shook out a travel rug, got her in there, and Dora started pushing immediately, pushing and crying, because now she was going to see her kid and at last she would know what state it was in.

‘It’s coming, it’s coming,’ she sobbed.

Donny was there, throwing open the other back door and leaning in.

‘Christ, I can see the head,’ he said, and then the baby spiralled out in a gush of blood and pus.

Dora cried hard heartbroken tears. Donny was down there between her legs, looking at the poor little thing. It was so tragic, so awful, never to have a chance to live at all.

‘We’ll have to bury it,’ she moaned.

He was still looking at the baby.

‘What’s . . . ?’ She was staring down at Donny, wondering what the hell was going on. The baby was dead. It had been dead ever since Frank punched and kicked her and killed it.

Donny was lifting the tiny thing up, showing it to Dora.

‘No, don’t . . .’ said Dora. Now it had come to the crunch, she didn’t want to see it. She couldn’t bear to.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a little girl.’

Then the baby started to cry.

61

Dora was in a daze. All these long months, she had been convinced the baby was dead. As Donny drove, she held the tiny thing wrapped in a fold of the travel rug and stared at it like it was a miracle. She counted its toes. Ten. Fingers? Ten. The little girl’s face was fine, no deformities there. Her eyes looked like any other newborn’s eyes. They were clear, and blue. There was a fine fluff of ashy-blonde down on her head.