He’d stormed out to his car to find that Freya had left him another note. One of her taunting reminders that she still had something over him: not just knowledge but photos, too, and the pillbox. Just to add to his sense of worthlessness, he’d left the house to go to work, then remembered he had no learners booked until the afternoon. He would spend the morning driving the streets, using petrol he couldn’t afford, letting fury expand into every part of him.

The call had come through on his work phone. If the woman had caught him on a different day, perhaps he would have dismissed her as a crazy person. But that morning she’d spoken directly to his state of mind, whether she’d known it or not.

“I hear you’ve been having some issues with the Harlow family.”

“What?” he’d said. “Who are you?”

“Someone who’d like to teach them a lesson too. I think we could be of use to one another.”

He’d been intrigued. Excited, even. Like this ally had been sent to him by some weird dark angel. When she’d offered him money it should have aroused his suspicions, but on that day it had just made him more convinced that this stranger could solve all his problems. Reliving that turning point, he was ashamed of how easily persuaded he’d been. How much agony he could have prevented by cutting off the call.

To begin with, the plan was nothing earth-shattering. The woman, who said she’d known Steph Harlow years ago, wanted to dispel her daughter’s illusions about her mother.

“She tells lies to her family.” The woman’s voice had been soaked in bitterness. “I just need you to make sure Freya sees that.”

She’d given him times, locations. All he’d had to do was hit the right spots at the right moments during Freya’s lessons. Sometimes he’d mistimed it of course—it was hard to be precise. But one lesson, they had ended up a few cars behind Steph Harlow’s BMW, and had seen her speeding off down a slip road toward the motorway. Freya had straightened behind the wheel, her foot easing onto the accelerator.

“I knew it,” she’d said under her breath, but with such passion it was as if she’d shouted.