Last Christmas Eve they had gone to midnight mass, walking through snowy streets arm in arm, but they had spent the morning of Christmas Day in bed, making love and talking about names for the baby she was expecting. It had been a wonderful day; the only blot on the landscape being when Nathaniel had called round in the evening with a present for her – a single hothouse rose in a fancy box tied with ribbons. She shut her eyes, her gaze inward now. There was something about Nat she couldn’t come to terms with no matter how hard she tried for Davey’s sake. He made her flesh creep.

The sharp tap at the window brought her eyes snapping open and there he was. He grinned at her, his eyes narrowing when she didn’t smile back. He had opened the back door before she got to it, walking in as though he had the right to enter at will. He had had the same arrogant, proprietorial attitude at the funeral earlier today, she thought tensely and it had made her feel uncomfortable and embarrassed but she hadn’t wanted to cause a scene, not when they were burying Davey. Now though, as he dumped an armful of packages on the table, she said stiffly, ‘Nat, what are you doing here?’

He straightened, taking his snow-covered cap off and banging it against his leg. ‘Brought you a few bits, that’s all, and Ferry asked me to drop Davey’s settlement money in. He thought it’d come in handy, it being Christmas.’

She had been told that as a gesture of goodwill the company were giving her a month’s pay although, as the letter she had received a few days ago had stressed, they believed the accident had been caused by Mr O’Leary not taking due care and attention. When she had asked Nathaniel how a manhole cover giving way could be blamed on Davey he’d shaken his head and said, ‘It’s always the same, lass. It’s never the company’s fault. You can’t fight ’em, it’s just how things are.’

As he took an envelope out of his coat pocket and placed it beside the packages on the table, he said, ‘They want you to sign for it, Ferry said.’