He didn’t stop for a reply but drove away quickly, feeling faintly sick. It wasn’t about Charley’s persuasion – the man couldn’t help that – but only that he was trying to cover his tracks and avoid the risk of being prosecuted by being seen to be a happily married man. Such a marriage would be a disaster, especially for someone like Molly.

The question was, what should he do about it? Tell her, or keep quiet and hope Charley was man enough to do the right thing?

Evelyn was probably naïve enough to imagine that a good marriage would ‘cure’ Charley, but Ted knew that couldn’t happen. In the days when he was an accountant he’d had two clients who had married, perhaps even fooling themselves they’d be cured. But neither of them was: one was caught by the police and went to prison; the other committed suicide in the end because he was so unhappy. He guessed that their two wives had been through hell.

Any intelligent, humane person could see that the law against homosexuality ought to be abolished. But while it was still in place Ted felt that he must protect his employee. She was worth far more than a cowardly man who wanted to hide his dark secret behind a flimsy veil of marriage.

The irony of it was that Molly already had a man who loved her truly, someone she’d grown up with and knew all about and was ideal for her. Ted felt sure she could love him, too, if he would just make his feelings known.

‘Over to you, George,’ he said aloud. ‘Over to you.’

On Sunday afternoon Molly remarked to the nurse that she was feeling almost like her old self again. Food, drink and lots of sleep had restored her spirits and, even though her head hurt where she’d been hit and probably would for some time, even after the stitches came out, it wasn’t too dreadful. ‘I could almost convince myself I imagined the whole thing. Well, that is, until I look in a mirror and see my bald patch.’

The nurse laughed. ‘And there’s this little one to remind you,’ she said, nodding towards Petal, who was snuggled up on a small bed beside her.

Molly smiled. Petal looked so adorable in a pair of red pyjamas someone had donated, and clutching a teddy bear Evelyn and Ted had bought her.

‘It’s a funny thing,’ Molly said. ‘Once you aren’t really hungry any more, you can’t quite remember what it was like.’

‘I believe childbirth is much the same,’ the nurse joked. ‘I’d avoid that one if I were you. It might make you remember being hungry, too.’

Molly laughed. She felt she had a dozen reasons to be joyful. She’d finally found Petal, she had Charley, and a job she loved with people who clearly cared about her. Mrs Bridgenorth had left a message at Warwickshire House for Dilys to contact her, and her friend had rung last night just before the Bridgenorths came to visit her. Dilys had sent her love and said she would come down to Rye on Wednesday, her day off. Molly had also had a telegram from her parents, and she was inclined to believe her father was as worried about her as her mother was.

Petal wasn’t right, of course. What child could be after such a terrible, long ordeal? She didn’t sleep calmly, she woke frequently with bad dreams and was fearful when anyone new came into the room. Sometimes she sat staring into space, and who knew where her mind was going to.

But she was talking to Molly, even if she wasn’t to anybody else, and she’d told her about the car ride from Sawbridge to Brookland. She said Christabel kept talking about someone called Sylvia who was going to come and join them very soon, and that they were all going to the house she’d lived in when she was a little girl.

‘But she told me lies,’ Petal said indignantly. ‘Sylvia was what she called my mummy, and she said Sylvia was going to join us. Miss Gribble told me the truth in the end, she said Mummy was dead because she’d got a bang on the head. She said if I didn’t do what she told me, she’d kill me, too. They gave me horrible food, and when I couldn’t eat it Miss Gribble brought it back the next day when it was cold and made me eat it or have it again the next day when it had gone off. She said I was a spoiled brat and she was going to teach me how nice girls behaved, and if I didn’t learn she would beat me.’

Molly felt sick to think that Petal’s hideous ordeal hadn’t been just for a few days but for months. She could imagine, too, the struggles Petal had had with that fearsome woman. She must have felt totally abandoned, locked up in that attic room, scared out of her wits whenever she heard a footstep on the stairs.

Luckily, she hadn’t seen what had happened in Stone Cottage, as she’d been out in the car. But Petal cried when she told Molly about how the two women had tricked her into thinking they were taking her to the Coronation party but just kept on driving.

‘She slapped me really hard, too,’ Petal sobbed out. ‘Just for saying I wanted Mummy. I didn’t know why she was being so mean to me, or where they were taking me. It was so scary.’

Petal didn’t know how they’d found her and her mother, or why they’d taken her away with them. She said that Christabel and her were out in the car while Miss Gribble was talking to Cassie, and they stayed there until Miss Gribble came out and then drove away. It was a blessing she hadn’t seen her mother lying there by the hearth with her head caved in. That was something even an adult would struggle to get over.

An examination of Petal when she was admitted to the hospital showed numerous bruises on her small body, proof of many cruel attacks on her since the women had got her into Mulberry House. She said Miss Gribble took her out into the garden most days, but always on a pair of baby walking reins or, latterly, with a rope around her waist so she couldn’t make a bolt for freedom. She said that the first couple of times she had screamed really loudly, trying to attract a passer-by, but the beating she got for it put her off trying again.

The strangest thing was that Petal had seen very little of Christabel, in fact so little that Petal had the idea that ‘the younger lady’, as she called her, was locked up like her, and felt sympathy for her. It was quite clear that, although Christabel had gone along with keeping Petal at Mulberry House, she hadn’t had a hand in any of the cruelty.

Molly wasn’t sure that any child, however strong and determined, could go through all that and remain normal. But, for now, Petal derived comfort from getting into bed with her and listening to stories.

What would happen next was anyone’s guess. Molly had already been told in no uncertain manner by a social worker from the Children’s Department that they would make the decisions on her future. Molly didn’t think they were going to think it important that Petal stayed in close contact with her mother’s friend. She wondered, too, if anyone would care enough to try to rebuild Petal into the happy, well-adjusted child she’d been before all this? Just thinking about that made her so sad.

Molly was lying back against the pillow daydreaming that she and Charley would be allowed to adopt Petal once they were married when the ward door suddenly opened, and there he was. He looked very smart in a dark-grey suit and striped tie.

Molly was unable to hold back her tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘It’s just that it was only thinking about you that kept me going while they had me locked up. And I was afraid I’d never see you again.’

She expected him to embrace her, to tell her that no one was ever going to frighten her like that again, but he didn’t, he just stood at the side of the bed with his arms against his sides looking awkward, distant and embarrassed.

‘You didn’t think there was something funny about George coming to rescue me, did you?’ she asked, thinking that might be why he was being so chilly. ‘I’ve known him since I was five, and I only wrote to him about getting a lead on Cassie’s family because he worked on the case when she was killed and Petal disappeared.’