Perhaps, for the first time in days, she might manage to sleep well. Nobody knew where she was, not her parents, not her boss, not even Sian, so nobody was going to turn up unexpectedly at the door. She didn’t have to switch on her phone or her laptop, or open her emails, or even step outside, if she chose not to. She had left everything that mattered behind in Norfolk, for a whole month. Her home, her job. And Joe, of course. Oh, how her cheeks burned with embarrassment just thinking about Joe. She would never forget the look on his face the last time she’d seen him. That mixture of stunned shock and unmistakeable pity. That face still came to her in her dreams. Maybe, if she was lucky, she’d left the dreams behind in Norfolk too. One way or another, she’d find that out tonight, but she wasn’t hopeful. Sleeping alone, in an unfamiliar bed, without Flo’s fluffy little body pressed against her and her gentle purring close to her ear, would probably be difficult enough as it was.

Her memories and her humiliation, of course, had come with her to London, like unwanted extra baggage she had dragged behind her alongside her battered old suitcase, and couldn’t quite manage to let go of. From some things, it seemed, it was never possible to escape.

Chapter 2

MADI

Madalyn Cardew pulled into the side of the road and peered out through the grimy windscreen. If she had realised how muddy the roads around here were going to be she wouldn’t have put her car through the carwash before leaving London. She’d have brought some sturdy boots too, instead of leaving them behind in the flat. Still, there must surely be some decent shops around here where she could buy replacements, she thought, not at all convinced that there were.

The small white sign, almost hidden among the bushes and bearing the words ‘Shelling. Please drive carefully’ as she entered the village, had reassured her that this was the right place. Her satnav had brought her straight here, without even one wrong turn, even though it was so far off the beaten track, with the hedges scratching at the doors as she’d made her way, gingerly, down that last narrow lane, that being reminded to drive carefully seemed laughable.

She had expected the village to be small and quiet, and it was. It looked like exactly what she needed, a quiet out-of-the-way bolthole, somewhere she wasn’t known and would not be recognised, yet this place was so Sunday-afternoon sleepy it looked practically comatose. There was not a soul about as she stepped out of the car and locked it, carefully avoiding the muddiest bits of road, and made her way round to the rather ragged pavement outside the tiny stone cottage which she assumed must be Prue Harris’s. She looked up and down the road for a parking meter, but there wasn’t one. No yellow lines either, so she hoped it was all right to park where she had, but there was a little black Mini already occupying the narrow driveway, mud-spattered as all the vehicles around here seemed to be, and she had no option but to leave her car parked outside the gate.