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anxiety. ‘I don’t know where the ‘ell I am, but you’ve no right to kidnap me and fetch me here. ‘Who do you think you are?’
    The eyes, Bella noticed, were dark as chocolate with long curling lashes but there was still evidence of violet bruises beneath each. The soft, pale mouth trembled slightly, revealing that the girl wasn’t very far from tears despite the tendency of the top lip to curl upwards in derision. Certainly there was not a sign of the anticipated gratitude.
    Bella’s reply was gentle, couched in soothing tones. ‘I was only trying to help. You nearly died.’
    The girl tossed back thick skeins of brown hair as if she were proud of its greasy lankness. ‘Well, that would’ve been my choice, wouldn’t it? Happen it would’ve been no great loss.’
    ‘Oh, don’t say that. No one should be left in the state you were in when I found you. It was me who took you to the hospital in the first place, so when they almost turned you out on the street the minute you woke up, I felt responsible.’
    ‘Well you needn’t. No one’s responsible for me. I can look after meself, ta very much.’ As if to prove this, she got to her feet, wobbling slightly as she glanced frantically about her. ‘Where’s me bleedin’ clothes?’
    ‘I’m sorry, I’ve burnt them.’
    The expression of outrage on Jinnie’s face was terrible to behold. Tension vibrated through every weakened muscle and Bella almost flinched, thinking the girl was about to fly at her with claws outstretched like a frightened cat. ‘You’ve burnt them? How can you have burnt them? ‘Who give you the right ?’
    ‘I’m sorry. I can find you some fresh. You’re welcome to some of mine.’
    ‘I don’t need no charity.’
    If the poor child hadn’t looked so dreadfully woebegone and deadly serious, Bella would have laughed at the incongruity of such a brave statement. Instead she attempted to placate, gently reminding her that the clothes had been covered in blood, whereupon Jinnie bit her lip, shocked into silence at last by the appalling truth of what she had done.
    ‘Wait there,’ And Bella disappeared next door to her own bedroom, rummaging through her capacious wardrobe to return moments later with a good tweed skirt, blouse and jumper, plus various pieces of underwear, including a pair of warm woollen stockings and stout shoes.
    ‘I do hope they fit you but, if not, we can always make the odd adjustment here and there.’
    She held the bundle out and Jinnie scowled, looking almost as if she might refuse this generosity but then, seeing no alternative, turned her back, stripped off the flannel night-gown and began to hurriedly dress. The result was not encouraging. The clothes hung on the girl’s skeletal frame as if it were a coat hanger and not a living, breathing body at all.
    ‘Well that looks splendid,’ Bella brightly remarked, hiding her concern.
    ‘This don’t mean I’m stopping ‘ere. I’m off this very minute in fact.’ Jinnie set off for the door, not quite knowing where she was going, or why, but somehow mad as blazes to find matters taken out of her control and determined to make the point.
    Bella took a sideways step, blocking her way. ‘Where to exactly? Back to that stinking room, to whoever put you in that condition in the first place?’
    ‘It’s my choice, my ‘ome, stinking or not. I can do as I please’
    ‘Of course you can. And it could equally be your choice not to return, to take this opportunity to escape.’
    ‘Why would I do that?’ A voice in the nether regions of Jinnie’s brain reminded her that she’d been trying to do exactly that for as long as she could remember but her obstinacy wouldn’t allow her to admit as much. ‘Toffee-nosed folk like you find it easy to look down on scum like me but you know nowt about it. Nowt !’
    ‘I’m sure you’re right, but I would like to understand. Who was it who did this to you? A friend? Not what I’d call a sign of