Now she was deprived of him as she had always feared she would be. But it was the police and the courts who had taken him away, not some large-breasted, blonde model type with hormones bursting out of her every orifice. That had been Donna’s biggest fear all her married life. Yet she almost wished he had left her now; in a funny way, she wished he had gone off with another woman. That would be preferable to thinking of him stuck in that prison on the Isle of Wight. Her Georgio, her free agent. Georgio who had a boat, Georgio who always liked to travel, Georgio who walked across the fields every Sunday after his dinner because he liked being in the air, liked his freedom.

She bit back the tears, their hot saltiness making her cough. Walking to the mirrored wardrobes, she stared into her own face. The eyes were black-rimmed, but still a deep blue. Her cheekbones were prominent, more so now she had lost so much weight. Her lips were dry and cracked from where she cried in the night, and chewed on them to stem the heartwrenching sobs of loneliness. Leaning her forehead on the cool glass, she took a deep breath. Georgio would be home once his appeal was over with; he would be home. She said it over and over like a mantra. She had to believe that, she had to.

If she ever stopped believing it, she would take a length of rope and hang herself. It was no idle threat; it was the truth, a deep inalterable truth.

Without Georgio Brunos, she was nothing.

She was hanging on by a minute thread. If Georgio lost his appeal the thread would snap and with it her reason. Her earlier joy on waking was gone now. The thought of her husband’s pleasure in her work, in the businesses, gone also. Because if he didn’t come home, the businesses, the house, the cars, all they possessed, were nothing.

All she had ever wanted in her life was him.