“A girl. The dogs were making a hell of a noise yesterday morning at breakfast time. I went out to see what was going on and she was there. In the barn.”
“And?”
“And I asked her in for breakfast.”
Sally raised her eyebrows.
“When you say a girl…how old?”
“Not sure. She’s a bit tatty round the edges. I should think she’s sixteen or so. Looked like she’d been sleeping rough.”
“Laurie…” Her tone was long-suffering.
“Well, I couldn’t just leave her.” He winced. His tone sounded more apologetic than he would have ideally liked.
“Where did she come from? Who is she?” Sally asked.
Laurie shook his head. “I don’t know. She said to call her Cat. She’d been sleeping upstairs in the old bedroom where Rob started out. Where the labourers used to sleep?” Sally nodded. “She said she’d been roug
