Lina reappears, dressed and still holding the photo; Melissa looks at her watch. “We’ve got lots of time before school’s out. It’s a sunny day, let’s go into town and find a cup of tea. We could go round the cathedral.”

Later they are walking around the ancient cloisters. It might have been something to do with the peace of the place, the way you can rely on time to make things right in the end. She is thinking about this and about Eve when Lina’s gentle voice breaks across the bird-filled quietness.

“I wonder if she will look like her father.” Lina’s tone is interested. “I wish in a way I could send him a copy of this, despite everything.”

Melissa glances at Lina, shocked. “It’s your decision, of course, but I’d be careful, really careful. Paul has been released; if he hurt you once it could happen again.”

“Paul?”

“He’s out of prison, remember, at least for now. He’s not allowed to come near me, but he might find his way to you.”

Lina looks up, bewildered. “Paul never hurt me.”

“He raped you,” Melissa says softly. “If he finds out he is the father of your baby—”

“Paul didn’t rape me. No one did. He is not the father of my baby.” Lina shakes her head, her dark eyebrows are raised in surprise. She lifts her hands, clearly astonished. “It was my boyfriend.”

It’s Melissa’s turn to feel stunned. “But I thought you finished with him, way back last autumn. The first time I found you in the kitchen, you said—”

“I had finished with him—at least that’s what I thought. I’d just found out I was pregnant. Hassan wanted me to have an abortion. That’s why I was upset; I told him it was over.”

Melissa sits down on the stone ledge by the pillars that run around the cloisters; her legs are trembling. Lina sits with her.

“Hassan carried on pestering me,” she continues. “He used to wait outside the door on my days off, he forced his way in to be with me sometimes. He began to hurt me; it was like he was punishing me for being pregnant. He said if I told anyone, he would let the authorities know I didn’t have a work permit. That morning you found me in the kitchen, the second time—remember?” She pauses.

Melissa nods. She remembers everything about that morning: Lina asleep in the pantry, her bruised face, the swelling in her abdomen. It was the morning Melissa finally realized she had to leave her husband.

“Hassan had got into the house again. He hit me,” Lina is continuing. “He would have carried on but there were noises from upstairs, so he left. I hid in the pantry in case he came back.”

Melissa puts her arm around Lina. Reeling from Paul’s vicious attack, she’d assumed he’d assaulted Lina as well; what Lina told her had seemed to fit, though she’d actually said so little. They could hardly communicate back then.