Picking up the telephone from the nearby table, Grace phoned the police.

‘I’ve just shot my ex-husband,’ she said calmly, before dropping the handset as the operator frantically tried to ask her questions and trace the call.

She dropped to her knees beside Nathan and the tears came like an avalanche from her body. Each sob like a convulsion. She cried for Nathan – for everything that bastard had ever done to her, and for the man he once was. And she cried for Ben, her wonderful Ben, who was dead simply because he’d loved her. But mostly, she cried for Jake. Her beautiful, sweet boy, and the possibility that he would never forgive her.

Epilogue

Seven Months Later

Grace walked out onto the decking in the garden, wrapping her shawl tighter around herself. She loved the crisp, cold mornings. Nothing but the sound of the crickets, the clucking of her chickens and the occasional disgruntled neigh from one of the horses, desperate to escape the confines of their stable and gallop free in the field instead. She knew how they felt and thought of the years she had been desperate to escape the bars of her prison. Sitting at the small table, she wrapped her hands around the hot mug of tea; the horses could wait a little while longer.

She found this time of the morning always led to some quiet reflection. She thought particularly that morning of how lucky she was to be there. She’d moved to her new house in the quiet village of Harewood shortly after Nathan’s death. She wanted to be far away from her past life. Jake was still studying at Leeds University, so it meant she got to be close to him too.

She remembered the shock on the constable’s faces when they arrived at her house on that awful day. It must have looked like a scene from a horror movie. Broken furniture. Blood everywhere. They took her clothes as evidence. Grace was sure that it was clear to them from the state she was in that she’d acted in self-defence.

She told the police Nathan had come to her house that afternoon and brought the gun with him, threatening to shoot her with it. She explained how he’d beaten her until she passed out and then, thinking she was still unconscious, he’d gone into the kitchen. She’d regained consciousness by this point and had taken the gun, which he’d carelessly left lying around, and tried to escape. He caught her though and lunged at her. So, she’d shot him – because it was either her or him. They believed her. They had no reason not to. Nathan’s reputation as a violent psychopath was well known among the police too, and that only helped her case. This was confirmed when Grace’s solicitor told her no charges would be brought against her.