She had hardly thought of Hugh since visiting his flat. Now, skipping through the Guardian, it seemed silly to have bothered to snatch him a pair of shoes. Any man in his senses would have long since left and be far away. He had no real need of the money. A man ingenious enough to keep a cache under the communal carpet of a house full of flats would be clever enough to have moved on. The probability was there and as the train moved out into open country she hoped it was a certainty.

Matilda laid Harper’s down. Its contents were a catalogue of the shops she had visited. The train, gathering speed, rocked along by the Kennet and Avon canal. Harrods, Fortnum’s, Habitat and Liberty’s seemed to her more like museums than places where persons like herself shopped. She was glad she had sent her children presents and that from a flower shop in Knightsbridge she had arranged for an exotic fern to be delivered to John with a note of thanks. She would write an apology too. A group of geese crossing a farmyard seen from the train made her feel intensely anxious. If Hugh had left would Gus be starving when she got back? Normally if she went away she would ask Mr Jones to keep an eye on Gus, but Hugh did not know Mr Jones and would have left Gus to his own devices. Nervously, as though the action would make the train go faster, she felt in her bag for the keys of her car. For the rest of the journey she held them in her hand.

Anxiety bunched her stomach. She shook her head when the attendant came down the corridor calling ‘First Lunch,’ then ‘Second Lunch,’ then ‘Coffee, Tea, Ices.’ All she could think of was Gus starving. She had shown Hugh the maize bin. Perhaps he would have gone off leaving a large basin of maize and a bucket of water. If he had let Gus out to fend for himself the neighbourhood fox would have killed him.

Then again perhaps Hugh was still there. He had food for some days. All he was short of was milk. She had made him promise to be careful, to keep quiet, to keep hidden. She wondered how she had got herself into this situation, it was lunatic. Obviously, she thought, clutching the car keys, by now something would have happened to alert the police. The dog would have barked, Hugh would have been seen, arrested after a chase, be ‘helping the police with their enquiries’. Why had she not read the papers or listened to the news?