In the end, time decided things for me. If I didn’t leave now, I’d be late for the twins. I turned the car back down the drive, my eyes fixed in my mirror as the house receded. It was finally quiet from the outside, but God only knew what was happening inside.

As I pulled into the lane, a prehistoric Jeep nearly took me out on the opposite side. I oversteered and rounded the bend too fast, then felt a lurch, followed by the awful crunch of metal on concrete.

‘I don’t believe this is happening.’ I slammed the steering wheel with my hands. ‘For God’s sake.’

Somehow I managed to manoeuvre the wounded vehicle up onto the verge as a silver BMW, horn blaring, swerved round me, the driver mouthing obscenities through his window. I ignored him with what I considered to be great serenity, and debated my options.

As I fished in my pocket for my phone, a car pulled into the drive from the other end of the lane and I felt my mouth open in surprise.

I was sure my husband had just driven through the gate to Hadi Kattan’s house.

Chapter Six
GLOUCESTERSHIRE, MARCH 2008

My poor wounded car just about made it back to the village after the incident at Albion Manor. I kept wondering if it had been James’s Audi I’d seen at the gate, but then Fred and Effie were waiting at the nursery door, their chubby faces beaming, and some kind of peace settled over me like a thin blanket. I watched them padding across the grass with a huge drawing of superheroes fluttering between them, Effie’s hat slipping over her face so she could hardly see where she ran.

‘We thought you wasn’t coming, Mummy,’ Freddie said. ‘But Mrs Foster said you’d only be a mimit.’

I gathered them to me. ‘I’m sorry, baby. I won’t be late again, I promise.’

‘Mummy,’ said Effie, freeing herself impatiently, ‘I’m vegetarian, aren’t I?’

‘Are you now?’ I kissed her cheek. ‘That’s nice.’

‘I’m not vegetarian,’ Fred said scornfully. ‘I’m English.’

I laughed and kissed their shiny heads, tucking them into the car beneath the frosting of cherry blossom on the roof. I looked at them and closed the door, thinking of Danny Callendar’s words, thinking uncomfortably of the man being marched to the house, the sly boot in the ribs. I had been warned off, and right now, it made absolute sense to stay away. I’d made a silent promise to the children, to the unborn Alicia after I was threatened in LA during my first pregnancy, that I’d never put their lives or my own in danger again; that I wouldn’t choose the story over safety any more.

‘I’m going to Vietnam next week,’ James said, feet up on the kitchen table.