‘I suppose she could claim that someone else killed him and put him in the ground. How are they going to prove it was her after all these years?’

‘I think the forensic team have got something up their sleeve and, besides, when the jury hear she locked Petal upstairs for months and was going to leave you to die of starvation I can’t see them finding her not guilty of stabbing and burying Reg when she alone had the motive and opportunity to do it.’

‘Whatever happens, it’s going to be tough for Christabel today,’ Molly said. ‘I’d hate to be in a position like hers. Miss Gribble is almost like a mother or big sister to her, and she must have loved her.’

‘I’m hoping that now she realizes just how badly she’s been betrayed, and that Miss Gribble stole her whole life it will make her speak out when she is called to give evidence.’

‘It’s funny to think such a weak woman could produce a daughter like Cassie,’ Molly said. ‘She used to tell me to stand up for myself and demand my rights. I used to think I was weak, just like my mum.’

‘You are like your mum in that you care about other people,’ George said, taking her arm as they crossed a busy road. ‘That isn’t weak. And you’ve got to remember that women of your mum’s age were told from birth that being a good wife meant never criticizing or opposing their husband.’

‘I suppose that’s okay if you’ve got a reasonable husband like your dad.’

‘Don’t ever tell my dad that! Mum is the boss in our house. She’s just good at making him think he is. She was even the one who proposed!’

Molly giggled. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. Apparently, he’d been hinting at it for months, but never came right out with it. He hadn’t even dared to say he loved her. So she got cross with him, and just said she was tired of it all, she loved him and wanted to get married, but if he didn’t feel the same he was to admit it and then clear off.’

‘That was brave of her! Most women would feel a man was just stringing her along if he didn’t speak about his feelings, or that he was rather pathetic.’

George’s head whipped round to look at her. Molly felt herself blushing and she hoped that, by just looking ahead, she would appear nonchalant.

Neither of them was called on the first day of the trial; they just had to sit and wait. At first Molly enjoyed watching people coming in, wondering who they were and what crime they were involved in, but that soon wore off and she began to feel cold and bored. The time passed very slowly, even with George to chat with.

Her mind wandered and she began to think how far she’d come since that first time in London for her interview at Bourne & Hollingsworth. She’d been scared to eat in a café, terrified she’d get lost on the underground and convinced she stood out as a naïve country girl. What a lot she’d seen and done since then! She’d been sacked from her job, almost raped by the man in Soho, gone to live in the East End and then got the job at the George. And she’d done what she set out to do: to find Petal and see Cassie’s killer brought to justice.

There had been some terrible times but some very good ones, too. She’d made a friend for life in Dilys, and Ted and Evelyn had become almost family. She could thank Cassie and Constance for expanding her mind and making her realize that she wasn’t weak. London had played its part in rounding her out but, although it would always be an exciting place to visit, she was very glad she didn’t have to live or work here any more.

She could imagine Cassie smiling down at her. She felt her friend would think she’d turned up trumps. Not just for saving Petal, but for saving herself from becoming a cowed little mouse like her mother.

That evening she and George went to the pictures. He wanted to see On the Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando, but Molly insisted she had to see Carmen Jones, with Dorothy Dandridge, and somewhat reluctantly George agreed.

She loved it, as she knew she would, because the music was so moving, and she cried several times. George admitted as they came out that he had been close to tears, too, and that he had loved the film, but said he was going to drag her to see On the Waterfront the following night.

He hadn’t held her hand or even put his arm around her in the cinema but, when they got back to the hotel, he kissed her goodnight outside her room.

It was a delicious kiss, slow, sensual and toe curling, but George pulled away from her and smiled down at her. ‘Bed for you. I wish I could come in and share it, but I promised your mum I wouldn’t take advantage just because we were in a hotel together.’

‘I think I’m old enough to decide for myself whether I would welcome a man in my room,’ she said jokingly.

‘I agree, but a promise is a promise and, anyway, we may need to have our wits about us tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But can I just add that there would be nothing I’d like better than to spend the night with you.’

Molly closed the bedroom door behind her and stood leaning against it for a moment in a daze. He’d finally admitted he wanted her. Was that because she’d put him under pressure by talking about weak men? Or because he really meant it?

They had barely got to the Old Bailey the next morning when the prosecuting barrister, Mr Barrington-Sloane, came to tell Molly she was to be called first.

‘I want the jury to see straight away that there is no doubt Miss Gribble is a ruthless and cunning murderess who had total control of Christabel Coleman. So I will first ask you to tell the jury about Sylvia Coleman and Pamela, then lead on to you finding Sylvia Coleman dead in Stone Cottage. I aim to go on from there to how you came to be imprisoned by Miss Gribble, but there is a possibility the judge will not allow that evidence today. We’ll see how it goes.’

Molly’s stomach began to churn with fright. Yesterday, as she and George were waiting, he had told her tales about defence lawyers throwing doubt on things witnesses had said. He’d assured her that she’d be all right as she was simply reporting what she’d seen at Stone Cottage and no one could twist it, as it was fact.

‘Don’t look so scared,’ Barrington-Sloane said. He was scary, too, tall and very thin with a nose like a beak. With his robe, wig, and half-moon spectacles perched precariously on the end of his nose, he reminded her of a crow. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he went on. ‘Just look at the judge and speak up.’

Molly didn’t think she’d be able to speak up, or to call Cassie and Petal by their real names. She couldn’t even think of them as Sylvia and Pamela, let alone remember to use those names.

It began very well. Barrington-Sloane encouraged her to set the scene by explaining how Sylvia and Pamela hadn’t turned up for the Coronation Day party, and how Molly had gone up to Stone Cottage on her bicycle to find them and found Sylvia dead on the floor and Pamela missing.

The defence lawyer, a short, stubby man, said he had no questions, so Barrington-Sloane moved straight on to getting Molly to relate what happened when she went to Mulberry House with the intention of meeting Christabel Coleman. Molly went on to say how she was attacked by Miss Gribble and knocked unconscious, only to come to later to find herself locked in a room in the cellar.

‘Will you tell the court what it was like in that cellar?’ Barrington-Sloane asked her.

‘It was very cold,’ she said. ‘The only thing to sit or lie on was a wooden bench. I couldn’t sleep because of the cold, and I was hungry and thirsty.’

‘You were in there for two days,’ Barrington-Sloane said. ‘Were you confident you’d be either let out by Miss Gribble or rescued by someone else?’

‘No I wasn’t confident about being rescued,’ Molly said. ‘I thought I would die in there, as no one knew where I was.’

‘But after your second night in there you did manage to pick the lock and escape,’ Barrington-Sloane said. ‘Did you run out of the house to get help for the child you believed to be held there?’