She couldn’t speak. Shock held her rigid. Who was this monster that she loved?

Her shock turned to disgust as Harold’s expression changed. ‘Susan. Oh, Susan, I’ve never felt so exhilarated. I’m free.’ His hands groped her breasts. ‘At last I’m free – I’m the top man. No more deferring to my father, my father-in-law, my bastard rotten half-brother or my stupid wife. It’s all mine – mine – and I want you. I want to celebrate by making love to you. Oh, Susan, my Susan.’

She was lost and didn’t resist when he took her hand and led her back into her bedroom. There she gave in to his demands.

During his taking of her, there were moments when she thought of Harold as an animal – a passionate, complex animal, who gave her experiences that she drank in. On and on it went, giving her extreme pleasure, made even more so by having to suppress her cries when she wanted to scream her joy. When the feelings built to unbearable levels, she did holler, and her hollers were joined by Harold’s, till she knew they must have been heard by all members of staff in the house. But she didn’t care.

Rising as soon as they could, they adjusted their clothes. Then Harold giggled. ‘Our hollers will be interpreted as grief.’ With this, he put on a distraught face and ran for the door, yelling, ‘Oh God, he’s gone – gone!’

Susan heard him running down the stairs, even though his tread was muffled by the thick carpet. To her, the world that she’d briefly left, to wallow in sensations that had blocked everything out, became acutely alive once more.

Getting off the bed, she dressed quickly and went back into Mr Witherbrook’s room. She straightened the cushion, then leaned over the body of the man, who had never woken up to speak to her since she’d been here, but whom she’d cared for tenderly. ‘Forgive me.’ As she said the words, she moved his head and fully closed his half-open eyes, taking two coins from the neat piles that were on his bedside table – piles that she’d never disturbed, and had liked to think of him creating neatly each evening as he retired. She placed the coins on his eyelids, before closing his mouth. It dropped open again, so she crossed the room and reached for one of his ties from his wardrobe, and tied it around his chin and above his head. These were traditions she’d learned to keep a dead person’s eyes and mouth closed until rigor mortis set them like that. These simple actions gave a person dignity.

‘There’s no more I can do for you until the doctor has been, and then I will give you your last wash-down and see that you are dressed nicely. I know we would have got on well. I don’t know why, but I have felt that the whole time I have cared for you. Rest in peace. I will make sure your daughter is freed and safe, I promise.’