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up, Tessa. Just keep your head down. You know how it is.”
    â€œYes, yes, yes. Just like you.”
    Myra bit her lip and did not reply. Tessa did not feel sorry for her, but despised her for what she had got herself into.
    They heard the sound of a car on the gravel, the door slamming, the key turning in the front door. Myra jumped up and the nail varnish bottle shot up in the air. Tessa lunged forward and caught it just in time. Myra went white.
    â€œOh Tessa, oh my God!” she moaned.
    â€œMum! Don’t!” For a moment Tessa was anguished. As if it mattered! Her mother had turned into a stupid dummy.
    â€œDon’t bait him, Tessa, just don’t.”
    Tessa was tempted again to give her mother a hug and say, “Of course I won’t,” to put her at ease, but it was no longer in her nature. It would have been a lie in any case.
    The door opened and the two of them stood hastily to attention like children at school. Tessa felt the comparison and scowled. Sometimes her courage failed her.
    â€œI see our delinquent daughter is back,” Maurice greeted them.
    The obvious reply – “I’m not your daughter” – sprang to Tessa’s lips but she swallowed it back for her mother’s sake.
    â€œDid you have a good day, dear?” Myra gibbered.
    â€œNot particularly. Sometimes I wonder about Raleigh’s competence.”
    Raleigh was her stepfather’s racehorse trainer. His stable was quite near, just over the downs opposite, and the horses could be seen at exercise in the valley early in the morning. It was a very smart stable, the most expensive in the land. (Of course.)
    â€œOh dear.”
    Myra knew everything about racing, but dared not venture the obvious opinion – that racing was a capricious sport and it didn’t do to lay blame. She guessed that Maurice must be an extremely unpopular owner. Trainers liked owners who took the rough with the smooth, who praised and encouraged, and lost sportingly.
    â€œNo one has a better reputation,” she said. “What more can you do?”
    â€œWhat indeed?” said Maurice sarcastically.
    â€œI’ll tell Mrs Tims to serve the dinner.”
    Myra departed.
    Maurice turned his gaze to Tessa and raked her up and down as if she were the disappointing horse. Straight to the knacker’s! she thought. But it wasn’t a joke. It was like being flayed alive.
    â€œSo? The bad penny’s back again? You’re getting to the end of the line, Tessa, aren’t you? Pushing your luck?”
    â€œWhat luck?” she said, trembling. “With you for a stepfather?”
    â€œBelieve me, you’ll know it when the luck fails.”
    He turned his back and marched out of the room.
    Tessa felt rage shake her. She wanted to spit at him. The pig! Luck! What luck had ever come her way? Losing her real father, getting him in exchange? Being given a home in his foul mansion? She’d be happier living on the street!
    Well, perhaps she would. Run away. She tossed her head defiantly. But even to her, this time, it did seem like the end of the line.
    Over dinner she said nothing. She watched him overtly: his grubby lips taking in the food, the grooves running down from his squidgy nose like drains, widening and closing to the grinding of his yellow teeth. Reptilian eyes, flicking up and down, missing nothing. Thinning black (dyed?) hair trained over the scalp and held with something sticky that smelled of… ugh! Tessa shivered. Jasmine – or was it drains again? Everything about him repelled her. Drains, that was a good name for him. Full of foul matter.
    â€œGreevy will be home at the weekend,” he said to Myra. “I was talking to Raleigh this afternoon about the possibility of Greevy working there. As assistant trainer,” he added, before Myra could think of mucking out.
    Myra’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but all she said was, “How nice.”
    â€œHe