At the end of the road Claudia indicated to turn left and headed toward the Hammersmith overpass. As they passed the shop that used to be hers, Dream Interiors (secretly sold as a going concern over a month ago and soon to be renamed All About Home by the new owners), she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the empty window and it made her feel oddly light-headed. Until yesterday her hair had been fair, shoulder-length, and wavy—now it was a rich chestnut color styled in a messy sort of bob that she actually quite liked. It gave her features more definition, she thought, and seemed to warm her pale complexion. She was nothing like the woman who’d started the shop fifteen years ago, although her eyes were still sky blue, and the delicate bone structure that Jasmine’s father, Joel, had captured in so many paintings and sketches remained the same. She’d been tall and curvaceous back then; confident, ambitious, and quick to make friends. She was still tall, of course, but so slender now, even gaunt, that it was like watching the ghost of herself passing from the windows of her old life on her way to the new.

She was going to miss her business, and her workers and the clients, but when the time was right she’d start creating the same all over again.

As they circled under the overpass and joined the A4 she was still regularly checking the rearview mirror, not so much for moving traffic as for anyone who might be following. It wasn’t possible to tell, nor was it possible, surely, for Marcus to have set someone on their tail so soon.

She glanced anxiously at Jasmine, and felt a momentary relief when she received an ironic smile in return.

“Will you please stop stressing?” Jasmine scolded with teenage exasperation. “You have to let it go, Mum. We’re on our way to a new life and that’s all we should think about. We’re actually pulling it off.”

Claudia followed the traffic and contemplated the truth of those words—we’re pulling it off—although they were hardly ten minutes from what used to be their home, so such optimism was perhaps a little premature. However, everything was going to plan so far. The BMW they were in had been delivered on time late last night; they’d picked up their new phones from a “dealer” a week ago; and, most crucially of all, the money from the sale of her business had been successfully transferred from an escrow account into the one she’d opened just after her new passport had come through. Dealing with the bank had been the trickiest part of the operation—did she really look like a money launderer?—but it was done now, thank God, and she’d already managed to draw cash using one of her new cards.