The poker whistled past Molly’s shoulder by a whisker, but Miss Gribble was undeterred and lifted it again, at the same time pulling open the cellar door with her other hand.

‘Get in there!’ the madwoman shrieked, prodding out with the poker.

‘Please, please, not in there again!’ Molly screamed out. ‘It’s dark, there’s spiders and rats.’

Petal was clinging to her side, and Molly couldn’t tell her to go without revealing her hysteria to be an act. ‘Please, please, I can’t bear it!’ she yelled, and she grabbed hold of the demilune table as if to prevent herself being hauled back into the cellar.

Petal suddenly took off like a jack rabbit, through the kitchen and out the back door. Miss Gribble lifted the poker, but hesitated, as if unsure whether to catch the child or deal with Molly. In that instant Molly picked up the brass eagle, which weighed a ton, and flung it at the woman’s face.

It had the most dramatic effect. There was a crack, Miss Gribble’s nose splattered like a squashed tomato and she slid down the wall behind her like a drunk on a Saturday night.

Molly gave her only the briefest glance then ran for the back door. But, as she stepped over the threshold, she saw Christabel standing there, and in her hands was an axe.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

George reached Hastings just on four. He was stiff from the long ride and it seemed hours since he had drunk the last of the tea in his flask. He stopped on the seafront to look at his map, and was pleased to see that Brookland was only about another half an hour away.

His mind had been on Molly constantly the whole ride. He kept on remembering little incidents, like when they were about six and he fell over and cut his knee badly while they were out playing. She had washed the cut in a stream and tied the belt of her dress round it like a bandage. Always the nurse and the comforter.

She had often tried to get him to play Mummies and Daddies, too, and he remembered how she’d told him off for not coming in and asking, ‘Why isn’t my dinner on the table?’ Of course he hadn’t realized then that her father was so difficult and demanding, not like his own, an easygoing, kind-hearted man who always had time for his kids.

Later, when he did know what a tyrant Mr Heywood was, he asked his mother if Molly could come and live with them.

‘I’d have her like a shot. She’s a lovely girl,’ his mother had replied. ‘But you can’t take children away from their parents just because they are grumpy and sour. I only hope that, when you have children of your own, you’ll be like your father with them, and not like that pig.’

His mother said she had gone out of her way to befriend Mary Heywood when she and her family had first arrived in the village. She said that Mary had been a sweet, kind woman, but even then she had become like a little mouse when Jack was around. Yet Mary had made good friends in Sawbridge: they watched over her and popped round to see her when they knew Jack wouldn’t be there. Everyone said what a kind heart she had; she’d slipped many a customer a few extra slices of bacon or a few ounces of cheese when she knew they were having a hard time. She passed on the girls’ clothes when they outgrew them to those who were struggling, and there was hardly a new mother in the village that hadn’t had a lovely hand-knitted pram set from her.

Since Molly had gone off to London, some people had told George that Mary seemed distant and withdrawn, but he hadn’t found this himself, and he’d gone in to see her often to check. He felt that she was happier now than she’d been for a long time, going off to Mothers’ Union meetings or popping in to see friends.

She had told him herself that she didn’t want Molly to come home. ‘She needs to make her own way in life and not worry about me,’ she said. ‘Besides, Jack is a bit better since she’s been gone. So you can stop checking up on me!’

He hadn’t stopped, of course; he just made out he was coming to the shop to buy something.

Brookland was easy enough to find, as the marsh was as flat as a pancake and the old church, with its strange, wooden three-part tower, which reminded him of a child’s stacking toy, stood out like a beacon. He asked a man out walking his dog if he knew where Mrs Coleman and her housekeeper lived.

‘They won’t open the door to you,’ the man said. ‘Completely cuckoo, both of them.’

‘Are they now?’ George said. ‘Well, I’m with the police, so they’ll have to open up for me.’

The dog walker shrugged and gave him directions to Mulberry House. It turned out George had already driven past the house, so he turned his bike round and set back off. He hadn’t gone far when a little girl darted out of a side lane and ran towards him, waving her arms.

He slowed right down, as it was quite clear she was in great distress, and as he got closer, to his shock, he realized it was Petal.

He pulled up and jumped off his bike.

‘Petal, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’m George, the policeman from back home in Sawbridge. I came to find you and Molly.’

‘She’s in there!’ The child waved her hand towards the high stone wall beside the road. ‘She came and got me, she told me to run for help, but the nasty lady has got her now.’

George took in the neglected dirty state of the girl, the long, far too large dress, and no shoes. However much he wanted to go straight to Molly’s aid, he couldn’t leave the child here unprotected.

‘Jump on behind me and hold on tight,’ he said, getting back on his bike. ‘There’s a shop along here. I’ll take you there and get them to phone for more police. Can you be a brave girl for a little bit longer?’

She nodded and climbed silently up behind him. He looked down at her thin, brown arms clasped around his waist and felt a lump rising in his throat.

It took only a couple of minutes for him to flash his warrant card at the stunned shopkeeper and to ask him to phone 999 and explain that PC George Walsh had left a missing child called Petal with him while he returned to Mulberry House. He told the shopkeeper to tell them he was assisting Molly Heywood, who was being held captive there. An ambulance might be needed, too.

George roared back to the house, left his motorbike by the gate and ran around to the back door.

There, on a paved area by the back door, he found Molly lying in a pool of blood and a wailing woman crouched a little way off with her head on her knees and an axe lying beside her.

Kneeling beside Molly, he found that she had a pulse but it was very faint. The blood was coming from a wound on the top of her head. He couldn’t tell how deep it was because of her hair.

‘You’re safe now, Molly,’ he said to her, even though she was unconscious. ‘It’s George, and I’ve got Petal safe and sound, too, and I’ll have you in hospital in no time.’

As he waited for assistance, he heard a sound from inside the house. He went in to see what it was and found another woman slumped on the floor. She was older than the first one, and her face was a bloody mess where she’d been hit. She was conscious, but appeared to have taken leave of her senses. She was just making a keening sound and didn’t respond when he asked her name.

The woman outside didn’t appear to have any injuries, but she was still just crouching there, rocking herself to and fro. He removed the axe, just in case she thought of using it again. He guessed that Molly had thrown the big eagle thing he’d seen on the floor in the hall at the other, older woman to escape, and that this younger one had hit her as she came through the kitchen door.

It seemed to take for ever for the emergency services to arrive, and he sat at Molly’s side, urging her to hold on until help came. Looking at what he could see of the house and thinking of the unbalanced state of the two women who lived here, he felt sick to think that Petal had been kept here for months, and he was astounded that no one had reported seeing her.