It was only when it started to dawn on them that she wasn’t all she said she was that the rot set in, but by then she was already making plans for her flight. She’d be unavailable on all her phone numbers and gone from her home that they eventually found out had been rented and not owned by her. The truth was she did own it, but through a holding company and she rented it to herself. Oh, she was a clever little girlie. No paper trails, no actual criminal act, she just borrowed money. It happened all the time. The police had never once interviewed her, and so she had no qualms about continuing. It was lucrative, and it was easy – perfect in fact.

So why had she felt this sudden longing to see her daughter? She truly wanted to see her, see what she looked like, how she had turned out. Gabriella would be sixteen now, on the cusp of womanhood. Did she look like her or did she now resemble James? Cynthia had a feeling it would be her; she always had, even from a baby.

Cynthia had no interest in James Junior; he was already too far gone from her to be of any interest. But Gabriella had possessed the same spark that she herself did. What she was feeling was in no way maternal, it was simply curiosity.

She knew Gabriella was with her mother and father, and she shuddered at the thought of how she would be living. They lived like tinkers – all TV sets and boiled food. Cynthia had hated it as a child, aspired to a better way of life than the working men’s clubs they frequented. She felt almost sick with shame about her upbringing.

Yet Celeste had loved all that, so had James when she had taken him to the club for the first time. He said it was a great place for meeting up with friends – like he had ever had any friends! To her it had always felt like slumming, but then she was above all that kind of shit. A good restaurant, decent wine and intelligent conversation were beyond these people’s comprehension – they had thought she was a snob, and she knew she was. She was proud to be one. Who in their right mind would want to live like them? Hand to mouth, eating food that had more preservatives in it than Joan Collins? Their main topic of conversation was what was going on in EastEnders.