He didn’t reply, just gazed out the window, where a dog was crouched, bowlegged, scent-marking a spot on the lawn.

* * *

“I don’t think he’s a killer,” Val assured the nurse. “He was an obnoxious old goat when he was younger, but it wouldn’t have been in his character to commit murder. I think he’s just repeating something he heard.”

“If you’re sure . . .” The nurse was relieved. They didn’t want the hassle of a police investigation. “Will you visit again?”

Val made a face. “It’s difficult. We live quite far away—Croydon Park—and I’ve got a nipper at school. But you’ve got my number . . .”

She had goose bumps on her arms and couldn’t wait to get back into the heat of the day. The stink of urine lingered in her nostrils as she drove across town to collect Nicole, feeling shaken by the encounter.

It was difficult to accept that the helpless, pathetic creature sitting in a chair by a window was the same man who had menaced her during her teenage years. The monster had faded but the harm he had done remained, and she couldn’t forgive him. She had read enough psychology books, borrowed from the library, to understand why she had walked straight from a violent bully of a father into the arms of a violent husband. Human beings were attracted to what was familiar. The way Tony treated her must have triggered a feeling instilled in childhood that it was all she deserved. Sometimes she still felt that.

During the years of infertility, Tony had called her a failure as a wife, a useless waste of space, and it was hard not to take the criticism on board. What was the point of her life? He wouldn’t dream of letting her get a job because it would make him look as though he couldn’t afford to support her, so she spent her days cooking and cleaning like a domestic robot. Her friend Peggy repeatedly urged her to leave him, but where would she go? What would she use for money? How would she pay for a roof over her head when she had no qualifications, having left school at Tony’s urging without taking her final exams?

Her marriage was unhappy, but wasn’t everyone’s behind closed doors? Even Peggy moaned about her husband’s untidiness. Once Val had Nicole, everything else became bearable. Her daughter gave her all the love she needed.