After quickly dabbing on some antiseptic and winding a plaster round her finger, she removed the T-shirt from the bag. Then she took out the screws from a small wall-mounted grille and placed the T-shirt in the cavity. She secured the grille but deliberately left one of the small screws on the floor, ready to be found, hopefully, by police forensic experts. She glanced anxiously at her watch. Still a safe fifteen minutes to go. She put her switched-off phone in a drawer under the bed, covering it with some underwear.

Tick.

She hurried over to the window and peered down at the street. No sign of the BMW or Niall.

She looked at her checklist. All done.

A plaintiff miaowwwww made her look up. Reggie was standing in the doorway.

‘What is it, darling, you want your dinner? I’d love to give it to you, but I can’t, because your daddy will know I’ve been here. He’ll be home soon – he’ll remember.’ She knelt, scooped him up into her arms and kissed his head. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ she whispered.

Reggie’s answer was to purr contentedly.

‘You’re a nice cat, you know that?’

He continued purring.

‘Thanks for being the one good thing in my life these past years.’ She kissed him again and set him down. He looked at her, then rolled onto his back. She knelt again and tickled his tummy briefly. Then she stood and glanced around their bedroom. She looked at the framed prints of Victorian Brighton on the wall, one of the Chain Pier and one of the Daddy Long Legs train that ran above the sea, which Niall had bought her for their first Christmas here. It would be the last time she would be in this room. And it was her last chance to take anything, but she couldn’t risk that, however tempted she was to take the one piece of jewellery Niall had bought her – in happier times – that she really liked – a Cartier tennis bracelet. Of course, he loved to tell anyone and everyone he’d bought it for her, like some sort of trophy that she had to be grateful for.

But, hell, why take the risk of him noticing? And besides, all it would do is remind her of him.

When she wanted to spend the rest of her new life forgetting him.

She adjusted the hijab in the hall mirror, pulling it as low over her forehead as she could, and put her sunglasses back on. Then, clutching her handbag and Waitrose carrier bag in one hand and keys in the other, she let herself out of the front door and strode up the pavement towards her car, without once looking back.

78

Sunday 1 September

Ten minutes later, Eden was driving along the A27 with Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ blasting through the car’s speakers. It was one of the songs that Niall hated. Just like most of the tracks on the playlist – her Freedom Playlist – that she’d secretly put together these past few weeks. Singing aloud to the track, she was heading north-east to Lewes, and then would take the Crowborough road towards Ashdown Forest.