Indebted To Moreno. Kate Walker

      ‘You never used Spanish when we— In the squat.’

      ‘No.’ There was even less emotion in the response this time if it was possible. ‘I didn’t. But then I didn’t want anyone there to know who I was.’

      Shockingly the fact that he included her in the ‘anyone’ he hadn’t wanted to know the truth about his background, combined with the fact that he had only ever used his native language to her in the brutally sarcastic way he had said querida just now, stung at her deep inside.

      ‘And obviously neither did you. So tell me, when did “Red Brown” become the much more exotically named Rose Cavalliero?’

      The room suddenly felt chill, as if the heating had been turned off, as from a shadowy corner of her mind came the echo of her mother’s voice on the day she had been called to the hospital to find Joy recovering from a brutal beating that Fred Brown had given her.