Her skin glowed, smooth planes beneath a spray of curls. On impulse, he pressed the back of his hand against her cheek.

'Warm,' he said quietly. 'How do you manage to feel so warm, when the world's so cold?'

She met his gaze, and for a moment neither moved. Then, still smiling, she took a step away from him.

He dropped his hand and turned away, mortified, fumbling with mugs and coffee as he berated himself. What the hell are you doing, Scott? You don't deserve to flirt with this woman, or any woman. Ever again. The glass jar slipped from his fingers and smashed, sending coffee granules and broken glass across the floor.

'Hell,' he muttered.

'Joseph,' said Rosie, 'it's okay.'

'Look at the mess. Clumsy idiot, everything I touch turns to shit! Everything.'

'I know who you are.'

He heard the words, but wanted them to be unsaid. 'Where does Abigail keep her dustpan and brush?' he asked desperately.

'I know who you are,' she repeated, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'I went to visit Gus yesterday. His mother was all agog to tell me.'

Rosie knew who he was. She knew what he was: a man who couldn't control his rage. A man who beat women to death. He needed to be out of the house, away from her. He strode into the hallway but was forced to pause there, pulling on his boots.

She followed him. 'Are you running away from me?'

'Yes.' He tugged at the heavy door.

'How much further do you think you can run?'

He hesitated in the old doorway, its stones worn smooth by the feet of centuries of farmers. A gust whipped into his face.

Rosie joined him, lacing her boots and pulling a shawl around her shoulders. Then she took his arm. 'Walk up the lane with me? It's always more sheltered there, between the walls.'

He allowed himself to be propelled towards the gate, past the bare-limbed sentinel tree with its lopsided sign. The farmyard puddles were solid ice. Even the stream had frozen over, rippled glass under a frosty rime. They negotiated the ford, stepping carefully along the band of cement that served as a bridge.

'I shouldn't have let Gus's mother gossip,' said Rosie. 'I couldn't resist. I'm sorry. Nosy Rosie they used to call me at school. That and Fatso.'

'Nosy Rosie.' Joseph almost smiled.

'Well, I've lived up to my name. Mind you, she was busting to tell. Thought I needed warning, since I might be in danger from the psycho. She's always taken a ghoulish interest, because of Gus knowing you and your wife. Your story wasn't at all what I expected.'

'No.'

'I had you down as a broken-hearted guy . . . Maybe the wife got the house, and you had to live in a caravan. I even wondered whether your ex was a total bitch who was using your children as pawns. I assumed that was what your phone calls were about.'

'Yes.'

'In fact, you're the bloke who divided this fair county. According to all the newspaper cuttings Gus's mother has stashed away-and she's got quite a collection-half of Yorkshire thinks you snapped under intolerable provocation and any red-blooded man would have done the same.'

'And the other half?'

'Um, the other half want to chop off your balls.'

Joseph sighed. 'You can count my sister among the ball-choppers.'

Rosie fumbled in a pocket somewhere beneath her layers of clothing, found a pair of oversized mittens and shoved her hands into them. 'Look up there,' she said, using her teeth to pull the mittens up her wrists. 'A patch of blue sky.'

'Where?'

'There.' She pointed with her chin.

Joseph squinted critically. 'That's not really a patch, is it? That's a tiny little dot. My mother would say it's not enough to make a pair of sailor's pants.'

Rosie considered this. 'Yeah, well. I've known a few sailors, and believe me they wear big pants.'

They walked for a time in silence. As they breasted the crest of the hill, Rosie inhaled sharply. 'What's your sister's problem? Why the ball-chopping?'

'Marie.' Joseph blew out his cheeks. 'Marie, Marie. Ah, well . . . That's a long story. Look, can we turn back? This has been very bracing and all that, but I actually can't feel my feet anymore.'

'Nancy boy,' she scoffed. 'Okay, about turn.'

They picked their way down the slope, crunching over ruts of frozen mud. 'We used to be close,' Joseph said finally. 'Marie and I.'

'Not anymore, obviously.'

'She's my big sister by three years. When she was nineteen she had a boyfriend called Jared. She was at college studying physiotherapy; dunno about him. I never liked his attitude to my sister. His teasing had a nasty edge to it. She was part of a big group of girlfriends who lived in each other's pockets. They used to go out clubbing, do the whole dance-around-the-handbag thing. He made her dump them.'

'She went along with this control freak?' Rosie sounded disgusted.

'Seems weak, doesn't it? But Marie wasn't a weak person-she was bloody-minded and nobody's fool. Mum and I couldn't understand it. Then she found out she was pregnant and moved in with him. His idea. Pretty soon she stopped seeing us. He bought her a state-of-the-art phone, took hers off her and monitored her phone calls. He even made her give up her course-said it was too physical, all that lifting might harm his baby. His baby, mark you.'

'Your poor parents.'

'Dad was too lazy to care, but Mum made him get off his backside and go round there with her. Jared stood in the doorway with his arms folded and told them both to fuck off and stop meddling. A week later we got the news that Marie had lost the baby. Mum waited for Jared to go out, then shouted through the letterbox until Marie opened the door.'

'Was she hurt?'

'Hell of a mess, face all swollen. She made up a story about falling over in the shower. That afternoon, after I got home from school, I went round and confronted Jared. He laughed in my face, and I hit him. I was in the boxing club, you see, so I thought I was a decent match for a weasel like him.'

'But you weren't.'

'Nope. I ended up with a broken nose, a split lip and my pride in tatters.'

'Didn't you tell the police?'

Joseph shrugged. 'It was me who'd gone round to his place, wasn't it? I thought they'd just nick me for throwing the first punch.'

'So what happened?'

'For three years, we hardly saw her. Nobody did. Mum and I kept up a campaign to get her to leave, but it was us that ended up being rejected. What we didn't understand was that Jared had reprogrammed Marie. She believed she didn't deserve anything better. He'd belt her for no reason-one time he broke her jaw-and then he'd feed her crumbs of affection. She was a bit like a dog, just grateful for anything he tossed in her direction. She thought they'd be happy if only she could be good enough.'

Rosie was shaking her head. 'I'm hating this guy.'

'My sister was a tough cookie before Jared came on the scene. She wasn't the sort to get pushed around. He turned her into a colourless, lifeless person.'

Rosie picked up a stone and spun it across a frozen puddle. 'How did she escape?'

'One night he said the fish she'd cooked was off. He decided she was trying to kill him, and worked himself up into a frenzy. Made her run a bath and get in, then held her head under the water. Her life was saved by a knock on the front door, which for some reason he answered. It was mates of his, come to collect him to go out to the local pub quiz. He just grabbed his jacket and left. Marie was only half-conscious, but somehow she got herself out into the street. She was a gibbering mess in a bath towel. Luckily, a passing taxi driver spotted her. Nice guy. He brought her home.'

'I hope you called the police?'

'Yes. Yes, we did. They were great. They arrested him. He lied, his friends lied, even his bloody mother lied. They all made out Marie was fixated on him. They said he'd broken off their relationship and she was a bunny-boiler.'

'Medical records?'

Joseph shrugged gloomily. 'She'd hardly ever been to the doctor-he wouldn't let her, except during the pregnancy. When she did go she made up excuses for any injuries. So the doctor's notes didn't corroborate what she was telling the police. Still, they took it all the way to trial. I'll never forget Jared smirking at me and Mum, in the public gallery. When Marie gave her evidence the judge put him behind a screen, but she was still so scared that she threw up into a wastepaper bin.'

'Oh, poor girl. But he was found guilty?'

'He got off.'

'No! I just can't understand that.' Rosie sounded stunned. 'It beggars belief.'

'The jury were out for hours, but in the end they let him off on a majority. Seriously, Rosie, Jared was a hell of a good liar. He had this sort of reptilian charisma. He played his part to a tee-the decent bloke, hounded by a she-devil. It came down to her word against his, and I guess they wondered why the hell she'd stay in that relationship for three years if it was as bad as she claimed.'

'Mm. They will have wondered that. Actually, I'm wondering that.'

'We all did. She was so screwed up by him, so ashamed of being screwed up.'

'He's probably torturing some other poor girl at this moment.'

'Probably. Years later, I came across him playing pool in a pub. I was an adult by then. I was sober, and he wasn't. I managed to get in a good one-two before his mates knocked me down. This time it was his nose that was bleeding! We both got thrown out of the pub, but it was . . . um, anyway.' Joseph tailed off as he realised how all this must sound to Rosie. Here he was, a man whose fists had killed, bragging about his prowess in a brawl.

'It was well worth it,' she said, finishing his sentence firmly. 'I wish you'd given him more than a bleeding nose. I wish you'd given him a real hiding.'

'Nothing to be proud of,' he muttered.

'Ooh, I don't know.'

'I still had the bruises when I met Hannah and Freddie for the first time. Hannah looked as though she'd swallowed a wasp when I told her I'd been fighting in a bar.'

'Oh dear, that was not a good start. How is Marie now?'

'She's forty, never had kids. After two years of counselling, her personality came back-bits of it, anyway. She did a degree in social work and ended up managing a women's refuge. She's dedicated her entire life to fighting domestic violence, so she hates me with a passion.'

'Why would she hate you?'

Joseph flung out his arms. 'Come on.'

'She doesn't understand?'

'What is there to understand, from her point of view-a woman with her history?' Joseph smiled grimly. 'The word understand implies that there might be some excuse for killing a defenceless human being, and how can there ever be an excuse? No, no, I am way beyond forgiveness.'

'But you're her brother.'

'That just makes it worse.'

They'd arrived on the bank of the ford, and halted for a moment. The river whispered as it slid secretly under the ice.

'When the snow melts, this will be a torrent,' said Rosie. She seemed to glide across the ford, stepping on the thickest stretches of the concrete bar that spanned it. Joseph was halfway across when his foot cracked through the ice with a dull splash.

'Blast,' he muttered, as freezing water engulfed his ankle. 'Wet sock. Gotta go and change. Coffee? My place?'

They stopped at the camp kitchen to collect Rosie's milk before trudging down the slope towards Joseph's caravan.

'Your sister's wrong,' said Rosie suddenly.

He sensed compassion, and flicked it away. 'Maybe after ten years of being Abigail's farm labourer I'll get back my citizenship of the human race. But I doubt it. Look, it doesn't matter. I'm alive, I'm seeing my children. That's enough for now. Come on in.'

He held the door of the caravan. Rosie stamped snow off her boots before stooping to untie the laces. She had a natural grace, he thought, despite the bulkiness of her clothes. He wondered about the man she'd left behind: the man who had offered her everything. Perhaps he was pining after her. Perhaps he was searching for her, stalking jealously as Jared once had.

It wasn't much warmer inside the caravan than out, though Joseph had left a radiator turned low. Jessy got up, arched her back with a groan and tottered down the steps.

'Yellow patches,' sighed Joseph, lifting his kettle onto the gas ring. 'All around my little palace. Lucozade-coloured snow, thanks to that old girl.'

Jessy was soon back, slipping on each step and forcing the door open with her head. She seemed to be muttering Jeepers! It's cold out there! as she bustled back to the radiator, leaving a trail of wet paw marks. Rosie patted the dog's soft face while her eyes strayed to a faded book that lay on one of the squabs. The cover was cinnamon and gold.

'Aha!' she cried, reaching for it with a smile of recognition. 'The Prophet.'

There was no way to stop her. He watched her open the book and read the flyleaf with its flamboyant handwriting. He watched her smile falter.

He turned away, stooping to squint out of the window. 'That patch of blue is more than a sailor's pants now. Look-it's a whole mainsail.'

'I feel like a peeping Tom.'

'Hardly.'

He heard her close the book and put it down. 'What was she like?'

What was she like? Joseph tugged off his beanie, running a hand through his hair. 'She was like a whirlpool.'

'Why a whirlpool?'

'Because she was an irresistible force. Impelling. Dizzying.' His movements automatic, Joseph made coffee in a plunger. 'One of the psychotherapists had this mantra: I am not my condition. I am not my condition. Zoe was meant to remember it whenever things got wild. But the fact is that bipolar was a part of Zoe. It was an element of her beauty. It was also her personal demon and torturer. Both. It took her to places nobody could follow.'

'All the time?'

'No. No, she was stable for months, years . . . When I first met her she was so well that she could hold down two jobs, acting and waitressing. Acting was in her blood. Her father's a theatre director, the sort who can look forward to an obituary in The Times.'

'Mm. Gus's mother saw him on telly when you were sentenced. Apparently the parents were very dignified outside court.'