One of the probation officer’s conditions for Christopher was that he must reside in his own flat in Battersea and stay at the same address if he was in London. The flat had been let while he was in prison but luckily the tenants had recently moved out, so it seemed the perfect solution that Marnie should stay with him too. She had never been so happy in her whole life. Christopher worked at his new book every day while she went to work at her father’s London office. She’d had an SOS from the UK managing director, whom she had worked for when she was living in England, to ask if she could help out on a temporary basis as his long-standing PA was having emergency surgery and had gone off sick in the middle of sensitive negotiations for a crucial deal. As Marnie was so familiar with the way things were done and he’d heard she was back in England, he thought she could be extremely helpful. She had jumped at the offer, glad to have a job to keep her busy while Christopher wrote.

For the rest of the time they happily explored each other – body and mind.

One day she had a long telephone call from her father, who had managed to get in touch with Ian Drummond. ‘But you’ll have to see him personally,’ he said. ‘How would you like me to come to Canada with you and help with the negotiations?’

‘Oh, Dad, that would be just so great. Would you really do that for me?’

‘I might be able to fix some business in Toronto. You’ll have to be prepared to fly over at fairly short notice to fit in with my schedule. I’ll call you.’

Christopher could see that Marnie was over the moon at her father’s suggestion, and felt relieved that she was going to have some serious support on her mission-impractical to buy a castle.

‘I do wish you could come with me too,’ she said wistfully. He longed to be able to go with her himself but suddenly foresaw a potentially serious difficulty in their relationship which clearly hadn’t occurred to her.

‘You do realise that there’s a likelihood of my never being able to go to the States with my criminal record, don’t you?’ he asked.

Marnie looked horrified. ‘Oh, surely, when your parole is over . . .? It will all be different then . . . won’t it?’ she said.

‘As things are at the moment, I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting a visa,’ he insisted. ‘I think you should break it to your father that you’re going out with a gaol-bird.’

‘That’s horrible,’ said Marnie indignantly. ‘I never think of you as a gaol-bird!’