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face. His nose might not be broken, but that tenuous link with his younger daughter had been severed, possibly forever. Yet they loved one another, Rachel knew that.
    After that night, no further mention was made of a house in Hawthorne Road. Peter knew that Rachel had been right. As expected, he spent his extra money on whisky and horses, coming into the house only to sleep and eat. His downslide had begun again.
    Michael Wray ran his fingers across the clear handprint on Katie’s face. ‘He did that? Your own father did that?’
    ‘Yes.’ Her head was bowed in shame. ‘I couldn’t go to school today in case anybody noticed it.’
    ‘I’ll kill him.’ The boy’s tone was restrained in spite of the severity of his words. ‘Or I’ll set my father on him. He’s a sergeant now, you know. The other police think a lot of my dad, they’ll listen to him.’
    ‘No! I don’t want . . . I don’t want my dad in trouble.’
    ‘Why not?’
    Her mind said, ‘Because I love him’, but she spoke aloud, ‘Because my mother couldn’t stand the shame. He’s never been happy because I was a girl. He seems to want me to be like a boy, successful and everything. It’s with me being ugly. He knows Judith will get married and her education will be wasted. But me, I’ll be on the shelf.’
    ‘Rubbish. You’re not ugly.’ He knew his face was burning with embarrassment. ‘You’ll get married, Katie.’
    ‘Huh! Who’ll have me? I’ve got stringy hair, eyes like a cat’s, great big feet and . . .’
    ‘A very nice smile.’ He hesitated and turned away slightly. ‘Yours is the sort of face painters like. It’s got lots of angles and planes, very good bone-structure. After you’d been to tea that day, my mother remarked on your cheekbones. Very high, she said. Very elegant.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Anyway.’ He kicked a stone across the path to hide his acute discomfort. ‘I’ll marry you.’
    ‘Will you?’
    He nodded. ‘We’ll have a farm with a duckpond, lots of mallards to paint. And in a barn we can make a big studio with good lighting and hundreds of canvases. I’ll use oils and you can use water-colours. We’ll have seven children and they’ll all be artists and actors and stuff like that.’
    ‘Nice. But we’ll have to wait years.’
    ‘What will you do till then, Katie? What if he turns on you again?’
    ‘He can’t help it. At first, he didn’t love me at all. Now, I sometimes think he loves me too much.’
    ‘If he loved you, he wouldn’t hurt you.’
    ‘And if he didn’t love me, I couldn’t disappoint him and make him hurt me. You can’t understand, Mike. Nobody but me can understand about me and my dad. I’m special to him. If I let him down, it really gives him pain.’
    ‘If he hits you again, we’ll run away and hide till we’re old enough to get married and be famous artists.’
    She smiled broadly. ‘For thirteen, you don’t half talk daft.’ But the smile remained on her face all the same.

3
    Peter Murray leaned on his walking stick and glared at his annoying daughter. She was a mess and no mistake. Blue jeans rolled up to the knees, a sleeveless striped blouse with a flyaway collar, the whole lot covered in streaks and splashes of paint. Her hair, too, was paint-spotted, that beautiful red hair that had thickened out something wonderful during the past few years. ‘What do you mean, you’re going to Didsbury? Didn’t you get an offer for Newcastle?’
    ‘I’m doing teaching,’ she said with quiet determination. ‘We’re both doing teaching so we’ll have plenty of spare time for our painting.’
    ‘Both. I see. So it’s still you and Mike Wotsisname riding off into an orange sunset, is it?’
    ‘With a touch of burnt umber, yes.’
    ‘Don’t you come the clever lip with me, lady! Your mam isn’t here to protect you now, is she? Why can’t you be like Judith? She’s doing so well at Oxford . . .’
    ‘I’m not a linguist. I’m an artist.’
    ‘I see.