‘The money we had in our joint account I have used to bring the insurances up to date. I also used it to pay off the building suppliers, as they were not going to allow us any more credit. I also know that for the car lot, you and Davey have two sets of books. One I assume for yourselves, and one for the taxman. Davey doesn’t know I found this out, so please don’t blame him. I had to shut down some of the sites. The houses on the Essex site were up to the damp-proof level - they will be finished once we have the money. I am depending on the Ilford site to get us out of this mess. We stand to make a little over one hundred thousand off that. But then, you already know all this, don’t you?’

She sipped her coffee once more as she looked into his stony face. ‘The XJS you owned has been taken back. We couldn’t meet the payments. I might add that the separate bank account you paid the leasehire from is now closed. I explained your circumstances to the bank, paid off your overdraft, and after talking to the leasehire company, everything was OK. My car I paid for by taking some of my jewellery, including my gold Rolex, to pawn. I now own the car.’

Georgio laughed nastily. ‘All right, so you found out about my business practices. They’re no better or worse than anyone else’s in this recession, Donna. So don’t make snap judgements.’