Fanny stretched and yawned. It was time to prepare the evening meal. The watcher’s stomach rumbled with hunger as the sizzle and aroma of bacon cooking over an open fire reached him, and the smell of coffee wafted through the air, with just a whiff of brandy mixed in.

When Fanny and Billy had eaten, Fanny repeated her question. ‘D’yer reckon we should mek us way back home, son?’ she asked.

Billy’s eyes lit up. ‘What, to Blackburn, you mean?’

‘If yer like.’

He flung his arms round her neck. ‘Oh Mam, yes! Yes!’

Releasing herself, Fanny told him through her laughter, ‘If yer choke me to death, yer bugger, you’ll ’ave to find yer own way back.’

‘When, Mam?’ She had not seen him so happy for a long time. ‘When can we go home?’

Teasing him, she looked solemn. ‘Well now, let’s see. It’ll be a shame to miss the harvest. We could mek a bit o’ money there. Aye, happen we should bide our time for a while yet.’

‘But it’s months away yet!’

‘Well, that’s right. Then o’ course there’ll be the autumn and the apple picking. We could mek a few bob there.’

‘Oh, Mam!’

Laughing, she caught him to her. ‘We’ll start us way home first thing in the morning,’ she promised. ‘And when I clap eyes on that Bridget, I’ll give her the biggest bloody cuddle she’s ever had.’ She had missed her so.

‘Do you think Ruthie will be glad to see me?’ he asked shyly.

‘She’d better bloody be, my lad, or she’ll hear from me.’

Thrilled and excited, they talked well into the night, long after the watcher had stolen away. Even after they went to their beds, they lay awake, unable to sleep, Fanny thinking of Bridget, and Billy thinking of Ruthie. Fanny even gave a thought to Bill Norman. ‘For all yer faults, yer still the lad’s daddy and, God help me, the only feller I’ve ever wanted in the whole o’ me miserable life.’

Bill Norman’s wife was a devious woman, and when it came to keeping track of her husband’s goings-on there was no depth to which she would not sink. Showing the seedy-looking character into the back room, she stood before him, hard-faced and impatient. ‘What have you found out?’

Though they were two of a kind, he had taken an instant dislike to her. ‘You won’t like what I have to tell you,’ he smirked.

‘Neither will you if you don’t get on and do what you’re paid for. I asked you a question and I expect you to answer it without any fuss. What did you find out? Be quick, now!’

Sullen, he told her, ‘She and the boy are on their way back.’

‘What? How do you know that?’

‘I found them camped in a wood some twelve miles the other side of Lancaster. I tell you, missus, it’s been one of the hardest cases I’ve ever handled. I’ve travelled miles, and it’s worked out far more expensive than I thought.’