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mistake of a marriage. Because while her share wouldn’t be the spectacular amount that giving him a son would net her, it would be a great deal better than nothing.
    So she hadn’t left him. She had made arrangements to terminate her pregnancy, quietly and discreetly, under the guise of a visit to her fortunately uncontactable family, had really gone on the pill, and had returned to Bernard to await developments. But what she hadn’t reckoned on was Bernard holding out as long as he had.
    For almost twelve months she had hung in there, her eyes on the prize, the hammerings growing more frequent as Bernard’s frustration with her lack of productivity grew. In January, he had installed the security fencing, and she had discovered that she was not to be given a key for the gate. She couldn’t take her car out and be certain of getting back in, not without Bernard’s permission; effectively that meant that she was stuck in Harmston, which not only didn’t have a fishmonger, it had no chemist, no outlet for family-planning requisites. Bernard accompanied her on shopping trips to Stansfield, watching her every purchase. Rachel, convinced that he must sell any day, had simply made alternative arrangements, and her non-productivity had continued until Bernard’s suspicions that she was on the pill had hardened to certainty. Then one night, six weeks ago, she had been dragged out of bed and subjected to a brutal and prolonged assault designed to discourage its use.
    Her feeble, barefooted attempts to defend herself had proved useless, and the careful, deliberate violence had gone on until she had finally collapsed, wrenching her shoulder as Bernard’s grip had refused to yield to her body weight. She had best get pregnant soon, he had said, as she half-knelt, half-hung there in agony, because if there was no sign of a baby in the very near future, she’d get the same again. Then he had let her fall barely conscious to the floor, had got undressed, got into bed and gone to sleep.
    When he had got up next morning, she had managed to pull the duvet from the bed, and wrap herself in it; eventually, she had stopped shivering. And when he had left in the afternoon to go on his rounds with Steve Paxton, she had telephoned Nicola for help. Nicola had been horrified, but useful, with her medical knowledge. She had given her first aid, but had insisted on taking her to casualty in case of cracked ribs or worse. There, Rachel had told a pack of lies to account for the state she was in, and had been examined. Very extensive deep bruising, they had said, but no internal injuries, no broken bones. She could have told them that, because that had not been Bernard’s intention.
    Before leaving Barton, Rachel had asked Nicola to take her to the station where she had shut herself in the photo booth and taken photographs of her injuries before time took care of them. Bernard might try to prolong the divorce proceedings, and she had wanted ammunition.
    Now she had been caught out in a lie, and her plan of action had changed once more. He had been going to do that to her again; she couldn’t have taken another beating like that, and telling him that she might be pregnant had been a desperate measure that at least called a halt to the violence while she worked out where to go from here.
    And there was only one way that she could see.
    ‘She’s fine,’ said Nicola, scratching Nell’s head as she threw the syringe in the bin, having given the old dog her annual check-up. Animals were the only living things her father cared about; she had inherited her love for them from him. She hoped she had inherited nothing else.
    ‘Tha can tek ’er back to t’farm,’ said her father. ‘There’s a cow Paxton doesn’t like t’look of. Tek a look at her while tha’s theer.’
    It was perhaps her father’s stage Yorkshireness that upset Nicola most of all; he hadn’t set foot in the place for a quarter of a century, and she doubted very much that