She had to get out of Dunnington Road, she couldn’t live like this. But how? She couldn’t take Dennis’s pension, even if it was a loan, even if, as she suspected, he’d laid a breadcrumb trail of little pensions all the way through his sixties. At her age, taking her dad’s money wasn’t much better than taking Adrian’s. But what other options did she have? Could she get a bank loan at this point? Perhaps if she asked Maggie to support an application, confirm that she was employed and …

She stopped suddenly. Corinna had offered to lend her money, too, hadn’t she? That hungover day in London, she’d offered to lend her the deposit on a place.

‘No, don’t get funny, I’d like to. I’ll even charge you interest if it would make you feel better.’

A month’s rent. Or a month and a half. How could she do that if she and Josh were broke?

Had she had money salted away? Rin, who’d grown up with very little, was careful. Saving was so second nature to her, she hadn’t thought that Robin wouldn’t do it. But no – when Josh had stopped paying himself, Kath said, they’d lived on Rin’s salary and her savings. Given how much he hated laying people off, they surely would have used those up first. Unless she had a secret account – but then, why would she?

How much had Rin earned? Since Peter was four or five, she’d been selling advertising space for a group that published local magazines. Her base pay was modest, she said; most of it was commission. She’d liked the challenge, claimed it kept things interesting. She’d never told Robin how much the commission came to but it couldn’t be a lot. They weren’t talking Vogue here – the magazines had names like Solihull Life and were distributed free around dentists’ offices and hotel lobbies. The advertisers were local restaurants, salons, florists. She’d be surprised if Rin had made thirty grand. Which sounded all right, liveable-on, but as the sole income for three people, the mortgage on the snowman house, two cars, childcare? Forget it.

What about the supposed loan against the machines? That would be just like Corinna, lending money from a loan she’d needed. If you were part of her gang, she’d give you her shoes even if she was standing on hot coals, too. But the loan had been Easter last year, ten months or so ago – how much had it been?

She did some rough calculations. Say Rin had earned thirty thousand. After tax and National Insurance, that would be somewhere around twenty, roughly, say twenty-two for the sake of argument. Less than two thousand pounds a month take-home, either way. Would that even cover their mortgage?