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      CHAPTER ONE

      IT WAS Monday morning and the occupational therapy department at St Alkelda’s Hospital was filling up fast

      Not only were patients being trundled from the wards to spend a few hours painting and knitting, making paper chains ready for a distant Christmas, learning to use their hands and brains once again, but ambulances were depositing outpatients in a steady flow, so that the staff had their work cut out sorting them out and taking them to wherever they were to spend the morning.

      The occupational therapist was a large, severe-looking woman, excellent at her job but heartily disliked by those who worked for her, for she had an overbearing manner and a sarcastic tongue, always ready to find fault but rarely to praise. She was finding fault now with a girl half her size, with an unassuming face, mousy hair and a tendency to slight plumpness.

      ‘Must you be so slow, Henrietta? Really, you are of little use to me unless you can make more of an effort.’

      The girl paused, an elderly lady on either arm. She said in a reasonable voice, ‘Neither Mrs Flood nor Miss Thomas can hurry, Mrs Carter. That’s why I’m slow.’

      Mrs Carter looked daggers, but, before she could think up something to squash this perfectly sensible remark, Henrietta had hoisted the elderlies more firmly onto their feet and was making for the room where the paper chains were being made.

      Mrs Carter stared after the trio. Really, the girl was impossible, making remarks like that, and always politely and in a tiresomely matter-of-fact voice which it was impossible to complain about.

      Not even trained, Henrietta was a mere part-timer, dealing with the more mundane tasks which the qualified staff had no time for—helping the more helpless of the patients to eat their dinner, escorting them to the ambulances, setting them in their chairs, finding mislaid spectacles, and, when she wasn’t doing that, showing them how to make paper flowers, unravelling their knitting, patiently coaxing stiff, elderly fingers to hold a paintbrush.

      Doing everything cheerfully and willingly, thought Mrs Carter crossly. The girl’s too good to be true.

      Henrietta, aware that Mrs Carter disliked her and would have liked to get rid of her if possible, was glad when her day’s work ended.

      The last of the elderlies safely stowed in the last ambulance, she began to tidy the place ready for the next day, thankful that she wouldn’t be there tomorrow. Three days a week was all that was required of her, and although it was hard to make ends meet on her wages she was glad to have the job, even though there was no guarantee of its permanence.

      The last to leave, she locked the doors, took the keys along to the porter’s office and went out into the cold dark of a January evening. The side-door she used opened out of one side of the hospital, and she began walking over this deserted area towards the lighted forecourt, only to stop halfway there, arrested by a very small mewing sound. It came from a tiny kitten, wobbling unsteadily towards her, falling over itself in its anxiety to reach her.

      Henrietta got down on her knees, the better to see the small creature. ‘Lost?’ she asked it, and then added, ‘Starved and dirty and very frightened.’ She picked it up and felt its bird-like bones under the dirty fur. ‘Well, I’m not leaving you here; you can come home with me.’ She rocked back on her heels, stood up, stepped backwards and discovered that she was standing on a foot.

      ‘Whoops,’ said Henrietta, and spun round. ‘So sorry...’ She found herself addressing a waistcoat, and looked higher to glimpse its owner—a large, tall man, peering down at her. Not that he could see much of her in the gloom, nor, for that matter, could she see much of him. ‘It’s a kitten,’ she explained. ‘It’s lost and so very thin.’

      The man put out a hand and took the little animal from her. ‘Quite right; he or she needs a home without a doubt’

      ‘Oh, that’s easy; he or she can come home with me.’ She took the kitten back. ‘I hope I didn’t hurt your foot?’ When he didn’t answer she added, ‘Goodnight.’

      He watched her go, wondering who she was and what she was doing there. Not one of the nurses, he supposed, although he hadn’t been able to see her very clearly. He would remember her voice, though, quiet and pleasant—serene was the word he sought for and found.

      Henrietta tucked the kitten inside her coat and walked home. Home was a bedsitting room in a tall, shabby old house ten minutes away from the hospital. There was nothing fashionable about that part of London, but for the most part it was respectable, the houses which lined the streets mostly divided into flats or bedsitters. It was lonely too, for its inhabitants kept themselves very much to themselves, passing each other with only a brief nod, intent on minding their own business.

      Henrietta mounted the steps to the front door, entered and went up the staircase in the narrow hall to the top floor, where she unlocked her own door. It opened directly into a large attic room with small windows at each end of it. A large, rather battered tabby-cat got off the window-sill of the back window and came to meet her.

      ‘Dickens, hello.’ She bent to stroke his elderly coat. ‘You want your supper, don’t you? And we’ve got ourselves a companion, so be nice to him or her.’

      She