Brighton, England, 1974

The thin wail of a child in distress drifted on the air, along with the salt-tang from the nearby sea, and Gideon Hartwright paused, listening. Brighton's narrow, tangled lanes – the oldest part of the city – lay all around him, moonlight glinting off the glass fronts of shops closed for the night.

The cry came again, but muffled this time, like someone was smothering the sound. Gideon's instincts prickled.

Something was wrong.

He turned into a narrow alleyway on his left, where the buildings crowded together, seeming to lean overhead and block out the moon, and then took another right until he emerged in a small paved area between shops.

A woman in a shabby, ill-fitting coat crouched in one corner, clutching a little boy to her. One hand was clamped tightly over his mouth. Behind her, partly hidden by her coat, was a battered suitcase. She looked at Gideon with wide, terrified eyes, one of which was darkened by a purple bruise, and Gideon held up both hands, reassessing the entire situation. When he'd heard the boy cry, he'd thought that someone was hurting him, but he'd been wrong.

"Are you alright?" he said.

The woman cringed away from him, trying to push the boy behind her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Gideon said, edging forward.

She didn't look like she believed him, and Gideon hardly blamed her. The suitcase, the bruised face, the haunted eyes – it was a reasonable assumption that she was running from a husband or partner, so she was hardly likely to trust a strange man on the streets.

Her little boy whimpered, and Gideon froze. The last thing he wanted was to scare them more, but . . . they clearly needed help.

He looked around, scanning the streets, but there was no sign of whoever the woman was running from. Still, that didn't mean he wasn't close by, looking for them.

"What's your name?" Gideon asked, crouching down to make himself look less imposing.

Silence.

"Please," he said. "You need help, don't you? I'm just trying to help."

Finally, her voice emerged, raw and scratched, as if she'd been sobbing. Or screaming.

"I'm Gilly," she said.

Gideon switched his gaze to the little boy. "And how about you?"

"Liam," he said, even as Gilly tried to hush him.

"Are you running from someone, Gilly?" Gideon asked.

He was pretty sure he already knew the answer, but if he could get her talking, keep her calm, she might let him help her.

She blanched, her face paling, and one arm tightened around Liam's shoulder.

"My daddy's very angry with us," Liam solemnly informed Gideon.

There were no visible bruises on the little boy, but Gideon knew better than anyone that psychological trauma could be just as bad as physical trauma.

Gideon held Gilly's gaze. "Is he out here now? Is he looking for you?"

She gave a jerky nod, her hair falling across her face. Tears shimmered in her eyes.

Gideon weighed up his options. He could stop this thug from ever touching Gilly again, but that meant leaving Gilly and Liam alone while he went to look for the man terrorising them, which also meant running the risk of the thug would find them first. The thought of leaving him unpunished made Gideon's fangs ache in his gums, but protecting this young mother and her son had to come first.

"You can't stay on the streets. It's not safe for you," he told Gilly, and her mouth folded into a shaky line as she held back a sob.

Gideon checked the streets again, with his ears as well as his eyes, but there was still no sign of anyone. "Do you have anywhere to go?" he asked.

The panic in her eyes was answer enough. Terror had driven her from her home, and now she was trapped – she had nowhere to go and she couldn't stay on the streets, but things would be so much worse for her if she went home after running from her abuser.

Gideon moved slightly further towards her. "I know how it feels to run from an abusive home," he said.

All she had was that one small suitcase, and though Gideon had fled home with nothing but the clothes on his back, he'd had somewhere to run to. He'd had Nicholas. Gilly had nothing.

"Please let me help you. Both of you," he said again.

"What can you do?" she said, her voice heavy with exhaustion.

That was a good question.

He could offer them both the spare room in the little flat he was currently living in, but something told him that there was no way Gilly would agree to take her son back to his house.

Gideon's mind raced. He needed to get them somewhere safe, somewhere Gilly's abuser wouldn't think to look.

"I can get you away from here," he said.

Gilly started to reply, then someone shouted her name, and her eyes flew wide with terror.

"Oh my god, that's him. That's him," she cried, clutching Gideon's sleeve.

"I won't let him hurt you," Gideon told her.

He could easily handle one human, however angry he was, but if he beat Gilly's abuser to a pulp in front of her and Liam, then he would lose whatever measure of trust he'd managed to build up. Gilly was already running from one violent man; she wouldn't put her safety in the hands of another.

He held out his hand, and after another moment of hesitation, Gilly took it.

Gideon led mother and son through the twisting, narrow lanes until they emerged onto a brightly lit street in one of the more modern parts of town. Several times they'd heard that angry voice yelling Gilly's name, and by the time they made it out of the lanes, tears were pouring down her face. She clung hard to Gideon's hand, and he felt a surge of fury towards the man who'd done this to her.

He paused on the kerb, looking up and down the street, trying to plan his next move, when a taxi appeared from around the corner. Gideon flagged it down before he could second-guess himself. The best way to keep Gilly and Liam safe was to get them away from here altogether, and they'd do that quicker in a taxi than they would on foot.

"Do you have any family you can go to? Anyone at all?" he asked.

"I have a cousin in London, but . . . I can't get there. I don't have any money," Gilly said as he ushered her into the taxi.

"Let me worry about that," Gideon said.

"Where to?" the taxi driver asked, craning his head to look at them in the back seats.

Gideon thought quickly.

"The London Road train station," he said.

The station on Queens Road was nearer, but that meant it was nearer for the man chasing them too. If Gilly had to wait for a train, Gideon didn't want to give that bastard a chance to catch them up.

The car pulled away from the kerb, and Gilly put her arm around Liam, cuddling him against her. She'd stopped crying and her head was low, her hair hiding the tear-stains and the bruise. How often had she had to do that in her life?

Anger surged again. Gideon guessed that she was in her early twenties, and Liam couldn't be more than four – they were too young to have suffered like this. It wasn't right.

The taxi driver glanced back at them again. "If you're hoping to catch a train tonight, you're out of luck. The last one left fifteen minutes ago," he said.

Gilly let out a little gasp and grabbed Gideon's hand.

"Can we go to another station?" he asked.

"Sorry, mate, no trains are running this time of night. You'd have to sleep in the station."

Gideon had slept in far worse places, but this wasn't about him. He looked down at Gilly, sitting rigid in her seat, trying to hold back fresh tears, and the little boy pressed against her side. A night spent sleeping rough meant a night of terror for them, not knowing if their abuser would catch them up, not to mention the fact that it was bloody cold outside. November was nearly here, and the mellow feel of autumn had given way to the sharper edge of winter, ushered in all the quicker by the sea breeze that rolled over the city.

Gilly let go of Gideon's hand. She probably expected him to leave them here, to say that he'd done his best but that he couldn't do anymore.

Gideon leaned forward. "Do you know any B&B's just outside the city?" he asked.

The taxi driver considered it, scratching his chin. "What sort of thing are you looking for?"

"Somewhere small and quiet."

"The White Gull's about twenty minutes from here. I could take you there," the driver suggested.

Gideon looked back at Gilly, who was staring at him with desperate, hopeful eyes.

"Do it," he said.

1/3