Pablo Picasso was an Asshole.

Mother hefted the sledgehammer over her shoulder, and Dora said, ‘Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.’

Mother swung the sledgehammer and smashed it against the mausoleum door.

Dora sat cross legged on a tombstone, the kit bag between her legs. Mother had told her, that’s your job, look after the bag, that’s all you have to do.

Sheltered from the downpour beneath an ancient oak, Dora watched Mother. Rainwater poured down Mother’s face and off her chin. Long, grey hair plastered against her skull. She lifted the sledgehammer again and, with a grunt, slammed it against the door once more.

The mausoleum door now had two shallow indentations in it. In the light of Dora’s torch, the door’s painted decorations glowed softly, bringing the dancing female forms to life.

That man never had an original bone in his body, Father’s dealer had muttered at the funeral, just loud enough that Dora and Mother could hear him. But he had self-belief in spades.

Dora said, Good artists copy, great artists steal.

A droplet of rainwater hit Dora on her head, and ran down her scalp and her neck. Back at Ravensmoor she would be in bed, covers pulled up to her chin, waiting for the soft click of the lock, the scrape of the door against the threadbare carpet tiles.

The thump of the sledgehammer against the mausoleum door, the sound dead beneath the downpour. Mother was now concentrating her attacks on the door’s lock.

What would Frank do when he found Dora’s bed empty? Wipe a trembling hand across his mouth and then turn and shuffle back to his own room, no doubt. He would keep quiet. Act surprised in the morning with all the rest of them.

But then Dora wondered if it was Frank’s turn tonight. Or was it one of the others? A parade of men through her room and her bed and her body. Who would they turn on next when they realised Dora had gone?

The soft tapping on her window, muffled calls through the glass, had carried Dora outside, through the asylum grounds beneath the heavy cloud cover, with Mother urging her on — This way, quickly now, hurry!

Mother always had a scheme brewing.