He held the door steady with one hand and pushed against her weight. It gave easily and she took a few steps back, stood there looking at him with real fear in her face. He’d seen it before. He was her worst nightmare come to life.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to let me in.’

She turned to look at the child. ‘Please don’t take him.’ The fight had gone out of her. ‘Please. I beg of you.’

He noticed then, she was younger than he’d thought. Sixteen, maybe. ‘You his mum?’

She nodded. ‘My grandpa said you’d be back. He warned me, after you came for Dora.’

‘The boy will be looked after,’ he said, and the words sickened him. ‘He’ll get a good start in life.’

‘That’s a lie.’ She pointed her finger at his face. ‘My auntie was taken as a kid. She told me what it’s like.’

The baby’s cries lifted as he shut the door behind him. She picked the child up, held him tight, cried silently with her face pressed against his. This was the one that would break him, he thought; he’d known it since he first set eyes on that child. This one would finish him.

‘It won’t be like that,’ he told her.

She turned from him and her body shook uncontrollably; her cries became a moan. He stepped closer and summoned the poison for the last time. The last time.

‘I promise you, it won’t be like that. I’ll see to it,’ he said, and he reached for the boy.

22

Leeds, 1967

Isla had a sore throat and her nose was stuffed up. She had been sent to bed because she was sick. It was cold in this bed and she suspected it wasn’t bedtime. It was hard to tell because it was always dark in England. The blankets were thin and she didn’t like the touch of them. They were making her more sick. She had left her Digby bear behind in Australia, and she was starting to think she might never get to hold Andrea Walker’s kitten. She had been nice to Andrea all those weeks for no reason.

Someone put a light on in the hall. The flowers in the wallpaper bloomed, big and ugly, yellow and brown. When Isla shut her eyes the flowers were still there, growing big and close then shrinking back. Isla watched with her eyes shut to see if the yellow flowers would push the brown ones away, but new colours started growing, green and then pink, with fat petals like tongues. There was a brick inside the bones of her head. She couldn’t move because the brick was heavy and hurting. She lay still. From outside she could hear Grandma’s voice, ‘Didn’t I try to tell you?’

‘Did you?’ Mummy said.

‘You’d have a degree by now. A career.’

‘I know.’

‘I said at the time, he’s no good.’

‘You don’t know him, Mum.’

Grandma snorted. ‘I’ll knock the bejesus out of him, so I will.’