She was in over her head even before it had all started. Listening to Alan today had been a frightening experience; she had felt the fear seeping out of her pores even as she sat there in Joe Allen’s. All her big talk was forgotten. As much as she loved Georgio, and she did love him dearly, the full significance of what he had asked her to do had now come home to her. Donna Brunos was being asked to set up a prison break-out with men she would rather not know even existed, let alone have to meet.

She was expected to keep a level head, help with the arrangements, sort out the businesses as well as get her husband his freedom. Suddenly she realised that what she had taken on was too much for her. She wasn’t strong enough to cope. When she was sitting with Georgio she could cope; when she was lying in bed missing him desperately she could cope; now the first steps had been taken, she wasn’t sure she could cope with any of it. Alan Cox’s smug grin had shown her that he could read her like a book, that he knew the fear his words had evoked. That the real truth of the situation had finally dawned on her.

Dolly knocked on the door and brought her in a cup of coffee and a letter.

‘This came from your man by second post.’

Donna took the letter as if it was a live snake. Placing the coffee on the small table by Donna’s chair, Dolly left the room to give her some privacy.

Opening the letter, she read the familiar words of love, loneliness and need. She read between the lines his plea for her to help him escape. She felt the waves of frustration coming off the two pieces of ruled prison paper. The well-worn phrases: I love you, I miss you, and I need you, were interspersed with, I am depending on you. Reading the letter again she knew that there was no going back now. For better or worse, she would have to keep her part of the bargain. Folding up the letter, she let it drop on to the thick carpet. She was to realise later on, during a sleepless night, that much as she loved her husband, a new element had entered her feelings about him. It was resentment.

She resented him for asking so much of her now, after never asking anything of her before.

Slowly she felt panic rising inside her, felt the cold heavy sweat across her back and shoulders that always accompanies acute fear. Lighting a cigarette with hands that trembled, she sat and pondered her situation properly for the first time.