‘A fucking play on Radio Four?’ Jonnie H. sneered. ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’

Iain’s voice was dry as he said, ‘They might be doing The Great Escape, eh?’

The men all laughed again, loud and long.

Jump nerves had got to all of them.

Donna was lying on the settee in her lounge, still in her dressing gown, a pot of tea on the small Japanese table beside her. The room was in disarray, and she looked around it as if for the first time. She had lain awake all night, and at some point a cigarette had dropped from the side of the ashtray and burnt through the lacquered top of the table. Far from distressing her, she found it slightly amusing.

She would love Georgio to walk in now. Never, in all their years in the house, had he seen the rooms looking less than perfect. Both Dolly and she had made sure of that because that was what he wanted.

Donna had spent the best part of her life in the conservatory, rarely using the lounges because the white leather furniture showed every speck. She had been frightened to crumple a cushion in case the lord and master came home and wanted to sit and watch TV. Then the room would be used, but Donna had never felt at home in there.

It was strange, she reflected, just how much Georgio had dominated her life, even down to subconsciously keeping her out of her own home, parts of it anyway. Like the French windows on the landing. They opened out on to a small balcony with wrought-iron table and chairs. If Georgio wanted to, they took their breakfast coffee out there in the summer and looked over the garden and the fields beyond. But only if he suggested it.

Once, she had gone out there alone, and Georgio had woken up and found her there. And in his own inimitable way, had made her feel a fool.

‘What are you doing out here all on your own?’

She could still hear the incredulity in his voice, as if she had done something sneaky, underhand. She had pointed to the second cup and he had shook his head, as if the thought of him, Georgio Big Man Brunos, sitting on a small balcony in his own house with his wife, was something distasteful. Lowering even. He had walked down the stairs and she could hear him greeting Dolly in the kitchen, leaving her up there alone, feeling a trifle foolish.