Jeremy would agree, in his sad way, giving me everything I wanted, even an easy divorce. He must have known we weren’t happy – we had only slept together a handful of times in the past two years, and for months I had paced the flat, round and round like a dog on a chain. The fact I didn’t love him and didn’t want him to touch me set against his love for me, his clumsy attempts to care. He couldn’t cook or clean or look after himself, but he tried. He didn’t seem to notice as I quietly shrank away inside, finding out that the life I’d fought so hard to get back did not after all have much left to it.

And now my mother was dead. I’d found out from Steve the day before. She was dead and already buried, since he ‘didn’t want a fuss’. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my own mother or to forgive her for abandoning me in an American jail, or for pushing me out of the nest in the first place, telling me I could fly high, when in fact I couldn’t. Not that she had ever asked for forgiveness, or even admitted she’d done wrong. The most she would ever say was it had been very hard for me too, Case, as if being locked up on Death Row was a minor inconvenience.

Her death had made me realise that my life with Jeremy, much as he loved me, was still a prison. Just with a more comfortable bed. The map lay before me, wide with possibilities. I focused on the green areas, the blue bodies of water, lakes and rivers and the sea. I would avoid the cities, where there was more chance of being recognised, and I would not leave Britain, since I still had a fear of foreign jails. Where then? Scotland – a bit cold, maybe. The south coast was expensive and too close to Jeremy. My hovering finger alighted on the Lake District, its curves of green and turquoise. I had been there on a school trip once. We’d smuggled vodka and boys into our youth-hostel room, and Lacey Chamberlain threw up in her kayak the next day. I remembered the Lake District as pretty, rugged, remote. Peaceful. All that water to absorb bad memories. I made up my mind, pleased to have a plan. I would go and visit Jenna’s grave and leave flowers, careful to avoid my stepfather, and then I would travel north. Towards a new life, where hopefully nobody would ever stop me on the street and say, Wait a minute, I know you.

Rachel

Rachel

I put my hands on the desk to steady myself and tried to keep my voice calm.

‘Alex? What are you doing here?’