The company’s business account currently held a little over fifty thousand pounds which could be accessed immediately. There were bills to be paid from that account, but they would have to wait, as Martha’s company often did. She jotted the figure down with business current account beside it. A few more clicks on the keyboard and the company’s depreciation account – the one used for the refurbishment – was in front of her with a balance of only ten thousand pounds. They could still access it, so she jotted it down.

Then Martha looked at their personal accounts. Richard always took care of the household finances but she knew there was a healthy joint account at the bank, ISAs in both of their names, and a savings account for Danny’s university fund. A joint building society account held the bulk of their savings and could be added to the equation.

Martha was shocked to see only a fraction of what she expected. It showed just below fifteen thousand pounds, a figure Martha was sure must be incorrect. Both she and Richard used a debit card to cover everyday expenses: groceries, meals out, shopping and such. But it was her husband who checked all the statements – she’d never considered the balance would be so low.

It occurred to Martha that Richard may already have been to the bank and withdrawn the amount she’d expected to be in there, she could confirm this by looking in her husband’s desk for the most recent statements. Although Richard preferred to do his banking online, he still received a printed statement each month. Their various ISA accounts amounted to ninety-five thousand pounds which Martha noted on her list before searching for further details.

Martha rarely went into Richard’s study. He liked to think of it as his personal space and she was happy to grant him the privacy. It was a very masculine room with a large, heavy wooden desk and matching swivel chair. One wall was covered with bookshelves, packed to capacity with legal books for reference and a few novels by thriller writers whose work Richard enjoyed reading. A large bay window gave plenty of natural light – it was a tidy, organised room.

A couple of trays on top of the desk were probably the best place for Martha to start and so she sat down in the swivel chair. Moving aside a wad of receipts held by a bulldog clip, she flicked through the papers which mainly related to their household expenditure. There were bills from the garage for servicing their cars, insurance quotes for house contents – mundane trivia which Martha was generally happy to let Richard attend to.