Donna pulled on her cigarette. ‘You sound very sure about that.’

Dolly stood up. Tossing back the last of her sherry she said bitterly, ‘Well, it’s just as well one of us feels sure, ain’t it? Only it doesn’t sound as if you know what you think. I’ll give you a bit of advice. Don’t think too much, Donna Brunos, it’s not good for you. Once you start thinking too much, you get to brooding, and brooding leads to trouble. Take my word for it.

‘Now, if you’d been married to my old man I could understand it, but not with Georgio. That man worshipped you, and I always thought you worshipped him. I know you did. So don’t you start doubting him now. It would kill him. He ain’t dead, you’re right there, but as I said, stuck in Parkhurst, he might as well be.

‘Everything he ever wanted or ever cared about is in this house, remember that. If he loses you, he’s lost everything. He’s depending on you to see him through this, to have faith and confidence in him. Bear that in mind, young lady.’

Donna watched as Dolly practically bristled from the room. That word always seemed to be in the back of her mind lately. Depending. Georgio was depending on her, they were all depending on her to keep everything going for him. It was like a death knell.

She stared down at the now-cold coffee and bit her lip. Life wasn’t fair. In all her years with Georgio she had loved him, looked after his home, cared for him and depended on him emotionally. Now it seemed he was depending on her - and she was finding it difficult to accept.

After years of just being there for him, at his whim, the novelty of being the strong one, the organiser, was beginning to wear off. He needed her all right, he was depending on her all right, but only because ultimately there was no one else he could really trust.

It was this that was really galling her.

Dolly was already talking about him in the past tense; most people did. It was all about before he went away, never about the present. Talk of ‘when Georgio gets out’ was growing less and less, even from his family.

He was depending on her to spring him from one of the most secure jails in the country. He was asking her to take her life, her very own freedom, into her hands - because if they were caught she would be sent to prison too. Yet she knew that as far as he was concerned, and indeed everyone else, she owed it to him. He was depending on her. After listening to Alan Cox today, the enormity of what Georgio was asking her to do had finally hit her.