They stopped at the shops on the way home for some more food and she allowed herself one or two small treats. She could afford a bar of chocolate and she loved fresh fruit. Victor had mostly managed with tinned fruit, which seemed to taste more of sugar than fruit.

When she’d finished Peter took her home.

She got out of the car and sighed as she looked at her house. So depressing to see it looking shabby and unloved. She tried not to show her feelings and chatted as cheerfully as she could while Peter brought in more things than she’d have believed possible from Victor’s house, as well as the fresh food she’d bought today. He unpacked them as she sat in the kitchen giving directions.

When he’d put everything away and taken her personal items up to her bedroom, Peter looked at his watch. ‘If there’s nothing else you need, I’ll be off.’

‘No. Nothing. Thank you so much for your help and please thank Mr Pinkett for me as well.’

She watched Peter leave, then she had a cry. Just a little one. Better to get your feelings out, her mother had always said. Well, she couldn’t hold them in any longer, so she had no choice. She’d miss Victor dreadfully.

Taking a deep breath Elise went into the kitchen. She was alone now, had to manage, because if she didn’t, Mary would try to take over her life again.

‘Just get on with it, you silly old woman,’ she muttered and squared her shoulders. She could manage. Of course she could.

Chapter Nine

Stacy applied for several jobs and had a couple of narrow misses, where she was in the final group selected and had to go for a second interview. She was desperate to get away because she kept seeing Darren at different shopping centres, and that couldn’t have been a coincidence.

He couldn’t be there to shop because he was never carrying any shopping bags or packages. He was simply ambling round the various centres, watching her from a distance.

She was waiting for the court order to be finalised, then he would have to stay over one hundred yards away from her at all times in public or near her place of residence.

Although he never came near her in the shopping centres, he smirked at her every time he saw her looking in his direction. Once he mimed holding a pistol to his head and pulling the trigger, doing it so quickly she doubted anyone else would have noticed the gesture.

After the second encounter, she didn’t see him for a week and as the court order had come through now, she began to hope he’d given up tormenting her. Then he popped up again just as she was relaxing, staying the required distance away from her but making sure she saw him. That upset her so much she left the shopping centre without buying half the things she’d come for, too spooked to stay.