‘Oh, my Susan, don’t say that. Margaret is to blame. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t been such a cold fish, and hadn’t brought in that seductress to be our housekeeper.’

It was beyond Susan how Harold could think like this. She’d always known he was selfish and needed to be pandered to, but this was a long way past that. This was the way a madman would think. It dawned on her then that perhaps Harold was mad. Maybe that was what made him like he was.

‘Margaret deceived me, you know. Yes, that dirty bitch had been with somebody else before me. She said he’d raped her, but I wonder about that. She’s a woman who wants it. A taker. She lies there and is in ecstasy when she has a man inside her, but she gives nothing back. She just lets it happen. I think she wanted that German who was supposed to have raped her. And I thought I was getting fresh meat – a virgin. She didn’t even pretend. I hate her. I hate her guts.’

Through all this Harold cried like a baby. He reminded Susan of a child who was in trouble, looking for someone to blame. She thought that if he had been standing, he would be stamping his feet.

‘She has to die.’

‘No, Harold, not that. I don’t think she will come back here. Why should she? Her father’s gone, all her money has gone, she—’

‘That’s it – money! I couldn’t fathom how, but she must have money that I don’t know about. The bitch! That’s breaking the law, as everything she has is mine. She can’t have money unless I give it to her, and I did make her a generous allowance. However, I have been able to get that back from the account I set up for her.’

His tears had dried. Harold wiped his face with the flannel he’d been bathing Susan with and reached for the towel. Standing, he paced the room.

‘That bitch has somehow got some money that I didn’t know of. She must have. She must have paid someone to get her out of Brockhall. It’s the only way. But what was that bloody orderly Michael doing? I’m paying him to make sure she is kept in there. He must have been one of the nurses off sick. Christ! He should have let me know.’

Harold was quiet for a moment. Susan began to shiver, not only as a reaction to the beating and the smarting of her wet wounds, but because the water was beginning to turn cold. She hadn’t the strength to get out of the bath.

‘Someone on the outside helped her – they must have done. I tackled that bloody Bainwright woman on the way here, but she acted as if she didn’t even know Mags was free. If not her, then who?’

Susan’s body trembled uncontrollably now. But Harold couldn’t come round to thinking she might have something to do with it, could he? If he did, she’d be dead – she knew that for certain. Harold had hit her before, but never like today. Today he had crossed a boundary. Oh yes, he was sorry, but that was only until the next time, she was certain of it.