Gina woke up feeling cold, stiff and itchy. The bed smelled unclean and she thought it might be full of bugs. She didn’t dare lift the sheet and look at the state of the mattress. This hotel was grubby inside and out, and a disgrace when compared to the bright and cheerful comforts of the Merrylife, but it was cheap and the woman on the reception – if the dusty and cluttered desk by the door could be called that – had not shown any interest in Gina herself at all. All she was concerned about was that Gina could afford the little that the room cost.

Gina eased her stiff shoulder and examined the scabs on her legs where she’d been pulled over in the street. Mary and Ruth had patched her up nicely, but she could really do with changing the dressings on her knees, and the huge bruise on her thigh was black.

She stood up, putting her feet straight into her shoes to avoid treading on the stained carpet, and went to lean on the windowsill, ignoring the dust and a couple of dead flies. The view was the back of a row of terraced houses, the stone walls black with soot. Was the whole of Blackburn covered in soot she wondered.

She’d thought life with the Hathersage sisters at the hotel was settling down into a boring routine, albeit with different guests to be bored about every few days, but now her life was suddenly in turmoil again and she wasn’t quite sure what to do for the best. Fleeing to Blackburn to try to sell the loot had seemed to be her only course of action after what had happened in Blackpool, but now she was here, alone, and she felt so unsure of herself, so lost. She’d dreamed of a life far away from the Lancashire fells, but even when she’d had the money to go far away – maybe down south to London; maybe to Liverpool and then on to America – she’d gone only as far as the Lancashire coast. It was as if Little Grindle and Grindle Hall would not let her go, and if she wandered too far, they twitched her leash and she would be drawn back in, just as she used to pull Coco to her to train him to walk to heel.