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your clothes were that rotten – we could tell when you were about a mile off. And the Paradise women did bash your mother, it weren’t a lie. And I’m going to wait here till you come out, then I’ll bloody well—’
    ‘Jean Irving, stand up at once.’
    Sally almost died of relief when she heard Miss Lever’s voice. Miss Lever was the owner of several voices. She had a kind one, a teaching one and a woe betide you one. This was the woe betide. But not even a woe betide carried the ultimate threat for a Craddock Street schoolchild, because nothing on this earth could have persuaded Irene Lever to send one of her charges to Basher’s office. Ernest Bates, commonly known as Basher, had one talent. This solitary gift involved a cane or a strap, sometimes both.
    ‘Who’s in there?’ Miss Lever asked of Jean Irving.
    ‘Sally Crumpsall, miss.’
    ‘Then what were you doing on the floor, Jean Irving?’
    ‘Well . . . I were seeing if she were all right, ’cos she’s been in there ages, miss.’
    ‘Out. Get out this minute, Jean, and stand at my desk until playtime is over.’
    Sally breathed more easily when she heard Jean’s clogs clattering their way through the outer door.
    ‘Come out, Sally.’ It was the kind voice this time.
    She came out, stood staring down at the floor.
    ‘Has your mother gone, dear?’
    Sally nodded.
    ‘Ah.’ This was such an unsavoury place, yet Irene Lever continued, grateful for a moment’s privacy. ‘I shall visit your father.’
    ‘He’s dying.’
    The teacher fought a moment of nausea, decided never to spend more than ten seconds in the toilet shed again. ‘I am so sorry.’
    ‘Can I go now, miss?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Sally walked into the playground, waited for the world to tumble in great lumps about her ears. A heavy hand fell on her shoulder, and she suffered an acute thrill of pure panic that almost riveted her to the floor. She kept telling herself that Miss Lever was just behind her, that everything was going to be all right, but Arthur Trubshaw was bigger than Miss Lever.
    ‘Sal Crumpsall?’ said a male voice.
    She nodded, waited for the blows to begin.
    ‘I’ll see to you,’ he announced.
    Her heart sank. He wasn’t going to kill her now, was promising her a ‘seeing to’ at some unspecified time in the future.
    ‘There’s no need for you to fear owt from now on, Sal. Anybody as can gut a lad like you gutted me wants praise.’
    She lifted her head, saw smiles of encouragement on the faces of Red Trubshaw’s cohorts. ‘Sorry I hurt you,’ she said. ‘Only it’s a new mac. It were just the mac.’
    The red-headed boy inclined his head. ‘I knew that,’ he said. ‘But nowt’ll happen to you from now on. If you want help here or at home, just yell “Red”. You’ve a gob on you that’d do for a rag and bone man. I reckon they must have heard you shouting down Manchester way. We could do with somebody like you as a lookout when we’re playing knock-and-run.’
    Irene Lever slipped away unnoticed. At least Sally had a champion of sorts. The teacher entered the staffroom, listened while the headmaster regaled the audience with tales of this morning’s whippings.
    Irene poured out her tea and sat near the window. Sometimes, she knew she was working in a prison. Always, she knew she was working for a sadist. In her mind’s eye stood a little girl in new clothes. How was poor Sally Crumpsall going to survive in this hell?
    ‘. . . said he’d set his dad on me,’ announced Bates to his small congregation.
    ‘I hope he does,’ mouthed Standard One’s Miss Lever into her cup. ‘Something has to change.’

THREE
    Joseph Heilberg lingered in the doorway of his Derby Road shop. Several passers-by greeted him during their swift escape from Paradise Mill, and he waved to them, smiling sadly as he watched the sparks flying from clog-irons attached to feet that rushed homeward. Only this morning, Joseph had lain in bed next to his wife, had listened to