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Visits from Shirley had been few and far between and the Manfreds had been far too haughty to bring themselves down to the level of an ordinary schoolteacher who was, after all, only a stepsister. That was the way she had worked it out in her mind.

She remembered Shirley’s agonised little face when she had come visiting before the baby was born.

‘He doesn’t even look at me any more. He hasn’t ever since I started on the baby,’ Shirley had wailed the words through a flood of tears.

‘Leave him!’ Kate had been unsympathetic.

‘No! Why should I?’ There had been a mulish look about Shirley’s pink and white prettiness. ‘I’m to be the mother of his child and I love him.’ But a few weeks later she had left him, coming to Kate in the evening with a taxi full of luggage, none of which was suitable for a mother-to-be. ‘I won’t go back,’ she had stormed. ‘Theo’s gone off to Italy, he says it’s business and he refused to take me with him. He said it was because of the baby coming, but I know better. They all treat me like dirt. Theo uses me as if I was somebody he’d bought, and when I complained, he offered to pay me!’ Her voice had risen in shrill outrage. ‘And his mother laughs at me,’ she had muttered, and Kate had suddenly found herself with two people to keep on her salary. Gerald had been a tower of strength at that time. It was he who had found her extra work, teaching commercial English to evening classes in the local technical college, and for a while they had managed very well. But then the baby was born and after that Kate learned a lot of new things, like babies grow at an alarming rate and clothes which fit today will be too small next week— and of course, Shirley’s life of luxury had spoiled her for the little economies of life.

Kate had suggested asking the Manfreds for help, but Shirley had been violently opposed to it.

‘They don’t want me, but they’d take Philip, if they could
get
him. As it is now, they don’t know where I am and I’m not going to tell them, not yet. If they want my baby, they’ll have to take me with him.’

‘But surely,’ Kate had been confused, ‘they know you’re here with me? Where else could you be?’

Shirley had flushed. ‘They don’t know about you,’ she had been reluctant to admit it. ‘Oh, don’t look like that, as if I’d done something dreadful. It all started out as a joke, Theo was—er—interested in me and I played Little Orphan Annie, all alone in the big, cruel world. He went all protective about me, then after we were together, I couldn’t spring you on him, not after more than a year, could I?’

Kate had closed her mouth firmly until her pity for Shirley had overwhelmed her momentary anger, Shirley had not seemed to notice, her mind was too busy with another facet of the problem of how to keep three people on a salary designed for one.

‘What about that photographer you met?’ she had enquired. ‘Didn’t he offer you a job modelling? Why don’t you take that? You’d earn far more than you do with your silly old school-teaching.’

And so ‘Noelle Lowe’ was born; successfully after the first bad start—but Kate preferred to forget that bad start. It had been something she wasn’t particularly proud of, an embarrassing humiliation and a complete waste of time. But the whole thing had been a waste of time, not just the first part, because within six months, when Philip was nearly a year old, Shirley was back with her young husband and a life full of sweetness and
light,
and Kate was stuck with ‘Noelle Lowe’.

She remembered Shirley’s glowing face, just a week ago when she had tumbled through the door of Kate’s
flat
with Philip, now a sturdy three-year-old. ‘A second honeymoon!’ Shirley had been so happy. ‘Isn’t it crazy after all this time? But we can’t go on a honeymoon with a three-year-old kid, can we? It would spoil it all completely. There just wouldn’t be an ounce of romance in it. Look after him for me, Kate. I’ve told Theo about you and he’s quite agreeable. See you when we get back,’ and she had whirled away to Theo and the car crash.

Kate came back to the present, to the tiny, stone- flagged kitchen, the rough plastered walls washed white, the low, raftered ceiling and the red and white checked curtains at the small window. While her thoughts had been wandering, Philip had engaged in a game with the puppy she had bought him, a game involving pellets of bread which the pup was supposed to catch and eat. Kate smiled at them as she rinsed out the socks. What were a few bread pellets on the floor?

Wrinkling her nose at the primitive conditions—she still wasn’t used to them after nearly four months—she went to fetch the small galvanised bath from the back shed, bringing it to the rug in front of the kitchen fire. There was cold water all ready in a large enamel jug and the black iron kettle on the trivet of the grate was puffing steam from its spout.

‘Bath time, Philip,' she called, and watched his young face grow mutinous.

‘Want to play.’ The boy turned back to the dog. ‘Want Daddy,’ she heard him mutter.

She ignored his wilfulness. It had been an upsetting time for him. He had been deprived of both father and mother and his whole life had changed overnight. He was such a little boy and he was bound to feel unsure of himself and everybody. Kate wondered vaguely why his perpetual call was for his father., he never asked for ‘Mummy’—but then, she argued, Philip would have seen his mother frequently during the day and his father less often. Perhaps Theo was looked on as a bringer of gifts, sweets and suchlike. But it was one of those little prob
lems
which would never be solved. Philip was the only one who could tell her and he was incapable of doing that.

Kate returned to present problems. She and Philip had been in this cottage for months, months of wintry weather with almost incessant rain from drizzling grey skies which made any outdoor activities almost impossible. There had been some clear, cold days, but they had been very few, and even Christmas had been a disappointment. Philip had wished for his ‘Daddy’ and with the best will in the world, that was one wish which Kate could not grant. She had provided all the usual things, a tree with glass baubles and tinsel, to hold the brightly coloured packages, balloons and streamers, cake, mince pies and a pudding, but the two cards on the mantelpiece, one from her to Philip and one from Helen, had looked lonely. A spartan Christmas, but that was how it had to be. While there were just the two cards, she was safe.

She arranged the minute striped pyjamas on a chair by the fire to warm and made splashing noises with the bathwater. Philip came at once then, eager to join in this new game. He was squealing with laughter and splashing suds at her, defying her order to come out, when a deep voice spoke from the kitchen door.

‘Having trouble, Miss Lowe?’

Both Kate and Philip turned to the door; Kate did it while an icy band tightened round her heart, but Philip took one look, screamed ‘Daddy!’ with obvious joy and wriggling out of the bath, flung his wet, soapy body at the man leaning negligently against the doorpost. Philip was fended off as the man crossed the room and took the towel from Kate’s nerveless fingers to wrap around the child.

‘He calls everybody “Daddy”.’ Kate heard her own voice with surprise. It was saying the wrong thing. She should have been up in arms at this intrusion by a stranger and she knew she should have said so, but this wasn’t a stranger,, not to her. And she had been fearing this for four long months. But she couldn’t say any more, her voice was going to wobble and he would know! She sat back on her heels and schooled her face to a quiet mask as she looked up at him. He was now wielding the towel in a competent way.

‘Especially when the resemblance is so marked.’ He was rubbing the boy dry.

Kate rose, folded her mouth tightly and set about outstaring the intruder. Now that the initial shock was over, some of her courage was returning. While she was doing this, she was assessing him. The resemblance was there, but it wasn’t that marked. Perhaps the hair was the same, black, thick and wavy, but the intruder’s was silvering at the temples while Theo’s had been a youthful jet. Maybe, if Theo had grown older, his face would have thinned down to these harsh, arrogant planes. Yes, this was what Theo would have looked like in ten years’ time if he had learned discipline and self-control. Then his weak, rather greedy mouth would have looked like the intruder’s long curve of thin lips and Theo’s eyes might have had the same world-weary droop of heavy lids. With an effort, Kate pulled herself together. This man frightened her, and she searched for some sign of weakness in the dark, harsh face, but there was none. He had frightened her at the funeral, but to show that fear would mean that her battle was lost before it had begun. Kate mentally fired her first shot.

‘Do you make a habit of walking into strange houses without knocking?’ Frost was thick on her tongue.

‘But
if I had knocked, would you have answered the door, Miss Lowe?’ One black eyebrow was raised as he set about inserting Philip into his pyjamas.

Kate lifted her chin. ‘There’s some mistake,’ she said coolly, and hoped that her inward trembling didn’t show. ‘I don’t know who has misdirected you, but you’ve come to the wrong house. Who were you looking for?’ Her expression was now one of polite enquiry with a shred of distaste for the uninvited.

‘I was looking for you.’ He fastened the button on the waistband of the pyjama bottoms and started to insert Philip’s stout little torso into the top half.

Kate automatically became the schoolteacher. ‘Wrong house,’ she said briskly and without regret. ‘I’m afraid I can’t be of much help, we’re strangers here, but if you go down to the village, it’s only about four miles....’ The firelight shone on the planes of his face, giving them a carved look as if they had been chiselled out of some dark stone. He was expressionless. ‘No, not the wrong house, Miss Noelle Lowe!’ It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, and the chill of fear crept closer to her heart.

‘Forrest,’ she corrected with a polite, meaningless smile. ‘Katherine Forrest.’

He smiled at her pityingly. ‘Ah yes, Kate Forrest, little Shirley’s stepsister who was born on Christmas Day and whose mother’s maiden named was Lowe—and this,’ he touched the boy’s curly head, ‘this is my nephew, Philip. Do correct me if I’m wrong.’

Suddenly Kate’s legs began to tremble. She had been fearing this for so long, it seemed like for ever. It had been a nightmare, both waking and sleeping, ever since Shirley had been killed, and now it had happened as she had known it would and all her machinations had been to no avail. A dark whirlpool was closing over her head, shutting out the warm kitchen and engulfing her in a chilly flood. She felt herself pushed into a chair and as if from a great distance, she heard his voice.

‘Where does the boy sleep?’

‘Upstairs,’ she mumbled through stiff lips. ‘On the right.’

He moved quietly for such a big man. She hardly heard his footstep on the steep, narrow staircase, either going up or coming down again. There was little sound either as he went along the stone-flagged passage to the front door. She felt a chill draught as he opened it, heard the click of the garden gate and the solid ‘thunk’ of an expensive car door closing. Then the draught stopped and he was back in the kitchen once more.

‘Drink this,’ and she opened her eyes to a glass half full of golden liquid. Distaste wrinkled her nose at the fumes of brandy.

‘I don’t drink.’ With a cold hand she pushed the glass away.

‘Drink it!’ He hadn’t raised his voice and she watched the long-fingered brown hand bring the glass back and raise it so that she felt the cold rim pressing against her mouth. ‘Drink.’ It was a soft command. The pressure on her mouth grew greater, bruising her lip, and because there was nothing else she could do, she drank.

‘Better now?’

Kate felt the brandy running warm down into her stomach and some of the cold fear withdrew into a cold knot in her chest.

‘Tea now, I think.’ He sounded quite casual as
he
moved about the kitchen, fetching milk from the small gas fridge, cups and saucers from the dresser and
light
ing the jets under the kettle on the Calor gas stove. When the tea came, it was hot, sweet and strong;
reviv
ing her so that life stirred once more in her frozen body.

She
had lost her battle, she knew that without being told. Had she sensed any weakness in this man, she would have fought and felt that there was some point to it, there would have been a chance of her winning, but there was no weakness. Nonetheless, she had to try.

‘He’s my sister’s child. You can’t have him.’ She raised defiant eyes. ‘Shirley asked me to look after him, not you, not your mother. Me!’

He sat down opposite her, arranging his long legs under the table and leaning back in his chair. His eyes held hers with a brooding look.

‘Money talks, Kate. We want the boy.’

‘Don’t call me Kate,’ she snapped, some small courage returning. ‘I don’t allow that familiarity from strangers, and you are a stranger. I don’t even know your name,’ she muttered the last inconsequentially. ‘Shirley always called you “Jo”. As for money talking, that’s what I’d have expected from you and your mother. You think you can buy anything.’

‘We can.’ He was tranquil. ‘If it was necessary, we could buy evidence, irrefutable evidence that Noelle Lowe is not a fit person to have the care of a child. But it isn’t necessary. I already have the evidence, we don’t have to buy more.’

Kate clenched her fingers about the cup and her face whitened. ‘Filth!’ She hissed the word at him.

‘You took your clothes off,’ he pointed out calmly.

‘No. I didn’t, not completely.’ A light of battle was dawning in her eyes and her fear was relegated to the background. ‘It was what’s known as ‘artistic calendar work’ and I was decently if briefly clothed.’

‘Titillating is a better description. Did you ever wonder what happened to those pictures, Kate?’

‘No,’ she glared at him. ‘I’d been paid and I didn’t care any more. I was just thankful.... And you know why I did it!’ Despair made her defiant. ‘Shirley wanted out. She came to me and begged. For a while, we managed, but it all got too expensive and I had to find money somehow. Your precious brother treated her like a—a thing! He used to offer to pay her! He used her, and your mother laughed!’ She shuddered, even now the thought made her sick. ‘Shirley asked me for help and
I
did what I had to do and I’m glad! Glad!’ she repeated. ‘You’re filth, the three of you—you, your brother and your mother. Now, get out! Get out of my house, Mr Manfred, and don’t come back.’