“Please, look again,” she repeated, “and remember what I said.”

So Maddy looked again, and she remembered what the nurse had told her, but her heart dropped like a stone at the sight of her neck and face. Yes, the ear was sewn back on, and though the skin was raw, it seemed as normal as it ever did, except for the marks all around… deep, meandering, red gashes of skin that spread from the front of her ear into the side of her face and down to her neck. The front of her face was bruised and you could see the line of fine cuts that were fast healing. But the damage to the side of her face and neck was a great shock.

Maddy told herself that, considering how she might have been killed, the awful sight of her face and neck did not matter. But it did. It did!

Silently, she cursed the man who had caused this to happen. But once more, the overriding thought was for Ellen and the baby. As long as they were safe, she kept telling herself, she could live with this disfigurement.

The man she had cursed was already celebrating the news that his instructions to do away with Maddy had finally been executed. “Are you absolutely certain?” he demanded.

Danny assured him, “The Songbird is no more!” Grinning from ear to ear, he boasted, “She won’t ever trouble you again, boss. Oh, I’ll admit things got a bit out of hand, and she got hurt bad in the process. But you said to make her squeal – to tell us where the kid is, and that’s what we tried to do. The trouble was, she weren’t anywhere near as tough as you think, because she croaked too soon.”

“So now you’re saying, we’re not likely to find out where the brat is?” Drayton frowned.

“Sorry, boss. But if you need the information that bad, we can start over, see if we can’t find out who negotiated the adoption?”

Drayton considered that for a moment, then he shrugged carelessly.

“Nah, don’t bother,” he told Danny. “Let the little bastard get off scot-free. To tell you the truth, I’ve got more important things on my mind right now.” Glancing behind him, he seemed unusually nervous.

Danny took that to mean he had been causing trouble and there was some kind of a backlash. He wasn’t surprised.

Steve Drayton had been at the top of the tree for too long. It followed that some bolder, younger villain would be waiting in the wings, ready to take over.

Either way, it was not Danny Boy’s problem. “So, you’ll arrange for me to be paid then?” he asked.

“Have you ever known me to welch on a deal?”

“No.” Danny knew that Drayton usually paid up in matters of this kind.

“Right then. You sit tight and you’ll get your money in due course.”

With that, Danny left, satisfied on all counts.

When Drayton’s woman jumped from that car, she had saved them the job of killing her. The description his men gave him, of her lying dead in the ditch, was not a pretty one.

But hey! What did Danny Boy care? He would have his payment, and his reputation was revived. He went away whistling.

Twenty-three

It was early in July of that eventful year of 1979, that Maddy was allowed to leave Bedford Hospital. She was almost whole in body, but far from whole in mind and spirit. The accident and its aftermath had knocked the stuffing out of her, and she felt more disorientated than ever before in her life. She had lost her home, her child, her lover, her career, and most importantly, her identity. She didn’t even look like herself any more.

The Songbird, she thought dully, would never sing again.

The young nurse Cathy, who had looked after Maddy during her stay in the ward, helped her pack her things and put her medication in a safe place. The Lady Almoner had ensured that Maddy left hospital fully equipped with clothes, shoes and all the other things she needed, for her torn and bloody clothes had been thrown away when she was admitted. Of course, there had been a police investigation into the accident, but they had come up with a complete blank – Maddy saying that she had accepted a lift from a couple in a red car, but had fallen out of it as the back door was not properly closed, due to her own carelessness, and that possibly the driver had not gone to the police for fear that she had died and he might be arrested for manslaughter. The police unwillingly accepted this story, sensing that there was more to it than she was telling, but they were adamant that the driver was guilty for not reporting the accident, which could have led to her dying undiscovered in the ditch.

Fortunately, Maddy was so ill at the time of their questioning that they did not pressurize her. She had given them the Blackpool address – not that they would use it – and her name as Sheelagh Mulligan – using dear Alice’s surname – in a feeble burst of self-protection, so that those thugs could not ring the hospitals and find out that she was still alive…

In the complete absence of any visitors, Nurse Cathy had become something of a friend. Maddy had accounted for the lack of visitors by saying that her grandad was too old to make the journey from Blackpool.

Now, as she handed Maddy her toiletries bag to push down the side of the holdall she had been given, Cathy asked, “Will you be all right, dear?”

“Yes – I think so.” But Maddy had no idea where she would end up. All she knew was that she had to get out of here, find lodgings of sorts, and contact Ellen as soon as possible. For now though, it was a milestone too far. She was still very weak.

“I can help, if only you’d let me.” The young nurse was no fool. She suspected that Maddy was a loner, with no roots or family. Using her recovery as an excuse, Maddy had confided very little about herself to anyone.

Lost in gloomy thoughts, Maddy did not hear and thus gave no answer. For endless weeks, this bed and this ward had been her home. Now, she had no idea where she could go – for Blackpool was closed to her, as was Brighill. Her mind went to Brad, and her eyes smarted with unshed tears.

In the depths of despair, she sat on the edge of her bed, her head hanging on her chest and her heart brimming with regrets. Her arms ached to hold her child. Where she had once been filled with optimism, now she was devoid of any ambitions or sense of joy. In fact, she felt like a completely different person – as though Maddy Delaney had been dragged into that car, and someone else had woken in that ditch.

It was a frightening, lonely feeling. So lonely, that for the first time in many months, she began to weep as if her heart would break.

Filled with compassion, Nurse Cathy drew the curtains round the bed, sat down and slid her arm about Maddy’s shoulders. “Let it out,” she advised. “My mother always says if you’re feeling bad, it’s better out than in.”

And so Maddy cried and clung to her, and when at last she was quieter, Cathy asked, very gently, “Where will you go?”

Maddy shook her head and sobbed, “I don’t know.”

The nurse bent her head to look into Maddy’s face. “Please… won’t you let me help? I know where you can get lodgings and wages to help you along, until you sort yourself out. It’s not charity,” she added hastily. “It’s hard work, but it’s regular, and it’s there for as long as you need it.”

This time, Maddy glanced up. “Where?”

“In this very hospital. They’ve been in desperate need of general help for a while now, in the kitchens and on the ward floors. The hospital owns a number of houses; some of them are nurses’ homes, and some are kept for other employees.”

She gave Maddy a cheeky wink. “I happen to know they have a vacant property on North Park Street, which would suit you just fine. It’s within a short bus ride of the hospital, or a twenty-minute walk on a good day. The shops are just round the corner.”