‘Thank you, Mrs Thwaite,’ said Gina pleasantly. ‘That will be all,’ she couldn’t help dismissing the housekeeper, unwisely as it happened.

Mrs Thwaite turned even redder, if that were possible, and came to stand up close to Gina, raising her chin so that she was looking her straight in the eye.

‘I don’t know how you’ve got the nerve to turn up here,’ she hissed, ‘after what happened in the village shop. Some folk round here know all about you and the missing money, and those that don’t – well, we might think it our duty to warn them about the kind of girl you are, Georgina Arnold. If it wasn’t for your mother, who we all respect, I’d make sure everyone in Little Grindle and everyone in this house knew as well.’

Gina turned white. Would that wretched business with the till money at the Fowlers’ shop always come back to haunt her? She hadn’t even taken very much …

Attack was the best form of defence with someone as pathetic as Mrs Thwaite, she decided. It was no use trying to bring her round; she wouldn’t understand, and besides, Gina was too furious to attempt anything but a threat.

She leaned in to the housekeeper, who was slightly shorter than she was, and said slowly, in a low voice, ‘Mrs Thwaite, if you so much as mention owt about me to anyone, you can be sure I will make your life a misery.’ She neither moved nor shifted her angry gaze, and the housekeeper shrank away, visibly shaken.

Even Coco was frightened by the tension in the room and began to whine.

Gina took several deep breaths until her fury had passed. Then she turned to the cowering puppy and, with a not quite steady hand, patted his head.

‘There, there, Coco. Nowt to be scared of – not for you, anyway. But Eliza Thwaite had better beware, or I might be trying out an incantation on her. What do you say, boy? Shall I give it a try? Nowt for me to lose; everything for her …’

The next morning Philip was up as soon as it was light. Dora got up then, too. There was no point in staying in bed – nor had there been much point in actually going to bed as Philip had been sighing and fidgeting all night, throwing the blankets off and then pulling them roughly over his head, turning over and over on the sagging mattress, cursing and muttering.

‘Shush now, love. It wasn’t your fault,’ Dora had whispered at about one o’clock, reaching out to calm him, but she might as well have saved her breath.