It was a voice she had never expected to hear again and as the figure advanced on her she gasped.

‘Ben … What the hell are you doing here? I heard you were in Egypt.’

‘Now that’s hardly the way to greet your long-lost love, is it? And yes, I was in Egypt. I suppose that fancy doctor chap of yours told you, but I was sent home to recover because I was ill. I’m due to rejoin my regiment soon, as it happens, but I couldn’t go without coming to see you and my children first, could I?’

‘Your long-lost love!’ Kathy scoffed, her voice scathing. ‘I can assure you it’s been a very long time since I thought of you as that. And yet do you know? I don’t blame you for what happened between us. Looking back, I have to admit that it was me that did all the chasing. I’d hero-worshipped you since I was a little girl and I suppose I saw you through rose-tinted glasses. But then you stole every single penny that my mother possessed. Money that it had taken her and your father a whole lifetime to accumulate and you left me with my belly full.’

‘Well, I couldn’t have taken everything if she had enough left to stay in this place and I didn’t know you were pregnant when I left, did I?’ Ben said defensively.

‘My mother had to sell Treetops,’ Kathy spat. ‘We moved into the lodge down by the gates but now she stays back in Treetops with the new owner where it’s safer for the children until the war is over. Not that you give a damn what becomes of them,’ she said harshly.

Ben stared down at the ground as he muttered. ‘I’ve seen them. I watched them when they came out of the lodge. The girl looks like you and the boy looks like …’

‘You!’ Kathy snarled. ‘Yes, he does but thank goodness he’s nothing like you in nature. I don’t even know why you’ve bothered to come here. We’ve done without you all this time so why show this sudden fatherly interest now? I suggest you get away while you can because after what you did to me and my mother one word in the police’s ear could see you locked up for a very long time and it would be no more than you deserve.’

‘What …? You mean the police aren’t looking for me already?’ he asked, bewildered.