The place they were leaving was a smart redbrick town house in the heart of Kensington, where they’d lived for the past five years. Their departure—escape, to give it the correct term—had been carefully planned during the last few months. They’d removed their most precious belongings in bags and suitcases as if they were just off for long weekends, or perhaps to make generous donations to a charity shop. Where they’d actually been taking their cargo was to Claudia’s mother’s house in Somerset, in order to store it in a weatherproof garage. Yesterday, under her mother’s supervision, everything had been transported from the garage to the place Claudia and Jasmine were traveling to now.

Nauseous with nerves, Claudia drove along the leafy street, careful to avoid the parked cars on either side of her, aware of a hundred or more windows bearing witness to their departure.

Was anyone actually watching? He’d said someone would be, but they’d never spotted anyone, nor had the private investigator they’d hired to check for them.

There were the neighbors, of course, but it surely wouldn’t occur to any of them that the mother and daughter from number forty-six were about to disappear without trace.

Claudia hoped it would be that way, but a lot could happen between now and the day they finally felt safe. The past could reach for them in any number of ways; traps they hadn’t yet been able to imagine might already have been set by their own oversights and unwitting mistakes, or even by fate.

Pushing the dread of it all aside, she drove on past the homes that backed onto the school her daughter had attended since they’d moved here. It was private, expensive, and should have been where she’d complete sixth form before going to uni. Now she was set to continue her education at a school close to their new home, using the name she’d chosen for herself—Jasmine—and sporting a totally new look.

Once as dark-haired as her beloved father, Jasmine was now blond, with a cute pixie cut that had been executed by her mother’s inexpert hand only last night. Jasmine loved it, thank goodness. Up to the age of eleven, she’d been a bright girl with a warm personality, and her dad’s sparkling enthusiasm for life. However, these past years in her stepfather’s home, subjected to his erratic moods and overbearing personality, she’d lost the buoyancy of her spirit and had even withdrawn from friendships and activities that should have been normal for a girl her age. So she was as ready to escape and start again as her mother was—as relieved to be making this journey as she’d ever been about anything in her young life.