Excerpt from Laura Blundy by Julie Myerson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I knew he lay there waiting, knowing that in another ten minutes the dog stealer would go, banging the back gate after him. And that soon after the church clock would strike the five, then the quarter, then the half. And I knew that, once he considered it all pretty barren and hopeless, he'd rouse himself and settle on the sill for a sullen, thoughtful smoke of the dib he'd left from the night before.

All the babbies still asleep, thank God.

And early wind would carry the foul smells of the tide turning at the foot of the lane which led to the cottages. Flood odour, too, was always very marked down there - doused paper, brick, flesh. And soon men would come from every door, stopping a moment in doorways to light their fags, before passing fast out of sight.

And I knew that my Billy would watch the sky flush crimson and maybe notice the sound of Lainy Sampson's canary starting up, spiking the general birdsong. Then he'd hear the Dalley infant add its shrill twopenn'worth and he'd know that was it: morning.

I had never been to Billy's or met a single one of them except in my dreams. I just knew all of this, I just did.

Well, Ewan is dead, certainly. He is bleeding from lots of places and he does not move.

There is a dull pain in my stomach. I am ever so dry-mouthed and would kill for a soda. When you are thirsty that is all there is, no other sensation matters. All I want is to feel the sharp bubbles dancing on my tongue.

A great deal of dust has been dislodged in the fight - proof that Verity has, just as I thought, been doing a very half-hearted job for weeks. Big burbles of fluff are set in motion by my skirts as I travel swiftly across the rug to the door and leave the room.

Something, a dicky, cobwebby feeling around the back of my neck, makes me lock it. I pocket the big clunky key and climb the stairs one at a time, convinced that the most pressing thing to do is change my clothes. I am always changing my clothes - in my new life, since I had clothes, I have done it a lot - but now it is essential. The smell of him is on me and I must get it off.

In the dressing-room glass I see that I am splashed with his blood as he must once have been splashed with mine. Spots of it across my forehead and even in my hair. I find a pocket handkerchief to spit on and get most of it off. Stuff it in the big pine drawer, beneath his own ties and leather tabs and cedary man-things.

After going to the WC and finding I am indeed on the rag, I make my way slowly down the stairs, crutches thudding once on each worn-out step. In the hall, I pause, listen, but there is only the humdrum ticking that I would expect. I take my cloak and am about to leave when a sudden worry gets me. Shouldn't I close the shutters in the kitchen where he lies?

So I unlock the door again and go across in the half-darkness. The window-pane is black, flecked with rain, they haven't lit the gas yet. That's what I'm worrying over, the moment when the man comes to light the lamps.

I don't want him found today.

I do it and start back. I thought I gave his body a wide berth, but I can't have, for there is a sudden, bubbly sigh and a hand grabs my ankle. I scream and in the panic I drop both crutches - my hands fly to the mantel for support.

I thought, after how many times I hit him, he would be dead. I was so certain of it. How can his fingers still be moving? How can his brain still be making plans?

I am screaming and clinging to the mantel, standing here on my one leg which is captured and I am unable even to give him a swift kick. I must not lose my balance, I must not fall. How he moans - again and again, moaning, clawing at me. Blindly, I feel around for the poker - the one which was there when Verity left it this morning.

Got it.

Reprinted from Laura Blundy by Julie Myerson by permission of Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright (c) 2000 by Julie Myerson. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.