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herself to reach out a hand towards her mother.
    ‘You’ll have me,’ she croaked out. ‘We can make a new life together.’
    But her mother didn’t take her hand or even acknowledge what she’d said.
    It transpired that her father left the house that night, running away from what he’d done. Verity wasn’t aware of it until the next morning when she heard a commotion downstairs. It was the police looking for him. Not the local officers she’d seen in Hampstead police station but special detectives who dealt with serious crime. She heard her mother insisting to them that she had no idea where her husband had gone, or even what time he’d left the house the previous night, because she’d shut herself away in her bedroom.
    ‘They are going to search the house, and they may come in here,’ Miss Parsons said to Verity as she put more cream on her wounds and covered them with dressings.
    She had helped her out of bed to walk gingerly to the lavatory that morning, brushed her hair and washed her face, and Verity had drunk tea and eaten a bowl of porridge, standing up. But the act of walking hurt, and sitting down was impossible, so Verity had got back into bed to lie on her stomach.
    ‘They are working their way through the downstairs rooms now, but don’t be afraid if they come in here, they are just doing their job, looking for evidence.’
    ‘What will happen to us?’ Verity asked her.
    For the first time Verity ever remembered, Miss Parsons showed some emotion. Her eyes filled with tears as she took Verity’s hand between hers.
    ‘I think you two will go to stay with your Aunt Hazel,’ she said. ‘I shall have to find another job.’
    By late afternoon Verity was feeling very sorry for herself. She hurt all over, her mother hadn’t seen fit to come andreassure her about anything, and until an hour ago the police had been rampaging around the house like a herd of elephants. When two constables came into her room, she told them her father had beaten her the night before, but they made no comment, merely shook their heads and left her room after a brief search. Clearly embezzlement was a far greater crime than hurting a young girl.
    She didn’t care where her father had gone, she hoped the police would lock him up for the rest of his life, but the prospect of living at Aunt Hazel’s was just terrible.
    Aunt Hazel was six years older than her mother. She had never married and had stayed in the family home in Lewisham to look after their widowed mother. Grandmother had been a fierce, spiteful woman who was famous for not having a good word to say about anyone. She had died a year ago and Aunt Hazel had inherited the house. She also appeared to have inherited her mother’s nature, as she too was mean-spirited and cold.
    Verity recalled at the funeral there being angry words between the sisters about the legacy. Mother thought the property should have been left to both of them. But Aunt Hazel got angry and said Cynthia had a husband to take care of her and lived in some style, whereas she had never had the opportunity to marry because she’d been forced to deal with their cantankerous and incontinent mother for years. She said she deserved the house – and anyway, it was hardly palatial.
    Verity hadn’t been to her grandmother’s house very often – only twice in the last three years – and it had always given her the creeps. The dark, cold and smelly Victorian terraced house was small with only a tiny back garden. Itwas also in a very working-class part of London. She’d noticed on previous visits that boys played football in the street and old people sat on their doorsteps. It didn’t bear thinking about what a huge step down it would be to live there. And she doubted Aunt Hazel would welcome them, as the sisters had never been close. In fact it was difficult to believe they were related. Aunt Hazel was quite common, and made curtains for a living. Cynthia looked, dressed and sounded like she’d been