Dora fell silent, fear clamping her chest in a vice.

‘I’m not taking you to hospital,’ said Donny.

‘What? But I . . .’

‘Nah. Bad idea. That would involve too much explaining. I’m going to tidy you up a bit . . .’

‘A bit . . . ?’

‘Yeah. Then I’m going to find us a B & B, tell ’em that we’re a nice respectable married couple and you’ve just had the baby early – bit of a shock, really unexpected – and so we need a bed for the night.’

Dora looked down. The baby slept on, but God he was right, she looked – and smelled – the most terrible mess. The sweat of fear, the odours of the birth, the smoke, her hair all over the place, the blood. God, she stank.

‘I don’t have so much as a comb. Everything I had went up in the fire,’ she said. She’d had very little left, anyway.

‘I’ve got an overnight bag here. There’s some bits and pieces in there. I’ll pull in, we’ll straighten you up.’

Dora didn’t feel safe with him. She couldn’t. She knew how thoroughly he despised her. And he was a killer – he’d slaughtered Bruno Graves right in front of her. She shuddered at the very thought. Cold as ice, that was Donny Maguire. But now she had family of her own. A daughter. And she was going to have to protect her, hold the world at bay against bastards like Frank, and Dickie, and Donny Maguire.

‘What you going to call her?’ Donny asked. ‘The baby?’

Dora looked down at the slumbering child. Her precious, wonderful child which for so long she had believed to be lost. Frank had done his worst, but somehow this little sweetheart had bided her time, silent and unmoving, and miraculously she had survived.

‘Angel,’ she said.

62

As promised, Donny ‘tidied Dora up’. This involved him reading maps and then stopping by a river and stumbling off into the dark. In the back, the baby slept and with the car’s rackety heater going full-blast, Dora felt her own eyes grow heavy. She hadn’t slept right for days, and the terror of the night’s happenings had left her drained.

Then Donny returned, snapping her out of a half-sleep. The interior light came on and there he was, holding out a dripping flannel. Icy river water splashed down onto her leg and she recoiled.

‘Here, give her to me for a bit,’ he said, and handed the flannel to Dora.

Dora flinched away. She didn’t want to hand Angel over to her arch-enemy, but what else could she do, right now? ‘You won’t . . . hurt her or anything? Please?’

‘I’m not a total bloody monster,’ said Donny, but she didn’t believe that. Not of a man who’d held her out of an open railway carriage door and threatened her life.

Dora gulped and somehow found the nerve to speak. ‘I’ll need something dry to put on. This nightdress is fucked. I can’t pitch up at a B & B wearing it. And I need some sort of towel, and some underpants to hold it on. I’m still bleeding.’