‘He didn’t mean to!’ snapped Roz. ‘That’s why they call it an accident! Otherwise it would be known as an “on purpose”.’

Suzie shrugged dismissively. ‘Perhaps it was.’

Roz stared at her in disbelief. ‘Are you really saying he’d crash our car on purpose?’

Lilith swiftly intervened before Suzie had a chance to answer. ‘Now, now, girls, let’s not argue.’

Roz glared at Suzie, daring her to reply, but Suzie turned to face the window.

The rest of the journey had been spent in relative silence, only interrupted by Suzie whining that she hadn’t wanted to go to Dovercourt in the first place, and how much longer would it be before they were back in Liverpool.

Stepping off the train, Roz told herself that Suzie might well be jealous that her grandmother had suggested they take in a refugee, and that could be why she was being so spiteful, fearing that Roz might take attention away from her.

They walked from the station, albeit rather slowly due to Lilith’s hobbling gait, probably, Roz suspected, caused by the enormous bunions which the older woman suffered from. They passed many grand buildings, some of which Lilith pointed out to Roz, even stopping briefly outside the Liver Building, which was in Roz’s opinion the grandest building of them all. Every street they passed after that, Roz expected the Haggartys to turn off and present her with her new home, but as they continued it struck Roz that the area they were coming to was more industrial, and she was just beginning to wonder how much further they had to go when Suzie turned down a lane and headed towards a row of warehouses.

Roz wrinkled her brow, until she saw a sign above one of the sheds proclaiming it to be a coal merchant’s, only the name above the door wasn’t Haggarty’s. She looked at the street sign, which read Crooked Lane, and breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that it didn’t read Ranelagh Street. She watched Suzie climb some rickety steps which ran up the side of the coal merchant’s building.

‘Where’s Suzie going?’ Roz asked Lilith.

‘Home!’ said Lilith promptly.

‘Oh!’ said Roz. ‘I assumed Suzie and Callum lived with you.’

‘They do.’

Roz stared at the building in confusion, before turning to Lilith. ‘This isn’t Ranelagh Street. I can read English, you know.’

‘I daresay you can,’ replied Lilith, who was now following her granddaughter up the steps.

Roz gaped at Suzie who was kicking the bottom of the door at the top of the steps with the toe of her boot. ‘Damn thing’s sticking again,’ she muttered as she scraped the door open and went inside.

Lilith looked down at Roz. ‘You can sleep down there or up here – the choice is yours,’ she said bluntly.