On Saturday afternoon, she took Nicole to a kids’ playground near their apartment. Straightaway Nicole called in greeting to a couple of girls who were hurtling down the slide, skirts flying up to reveal skinny tanned legs and white cotton knickers. Although the slide was higher than any Nicole had been on before, she rushed to join them with a shriek of excitement. Val resisted the urge to run and catch her at the bottom. She didn’t want to make her look babyish in front of her friends, but held her breath until Nicole slithered to a graceful halt and gave her a triumphant grin.

On the road outside the park there was a phone booth, and Val counted the coins in her purse then made a spur-of-the-moment decision to call Tony. After seventeen years of marriage, she owed him that. Keeping her eyes fixed on Nicole and her friends, she dialed the number, sick with nerves.

“It’s me,” she said when he answered. “I just wanted to let you know that your daughter and I are safe. I’m sorry I told you I was leaving in a note, but I was worried you would try to stop us.”

“Where are you?” he asked, and she couldn’t read his tone. Was it concern?

“We’re still in Sydney. I’ve got a flat. Look, I’m sorry, Tony, but we both know that neither of us was happy in our marriage. It was only after Dad died that I took a step back and realized that this is it—you only get one life.” She had rehearsed these words so often in her head that now she blurted them out, wanting them all to be said before he began to argue back. “We got married too young and I loved you at the time—I really did—but we married for the wrong reasons and it’s not been working for a while. I’ve been miserable and I’m sure you have too. Thing is, we’re both young enough to try again, and I hope we can find happiness next time. When we get divorced, that is . . .” Her voice trailed off at the long silence on the other end of the line.

“Divorce?” he said, his voice as cold as steel. “Over my dead body. You get back to this house right now, you bloody bitch. You’re lucky I haven’t called the police to have you arrested for abducting my daughter. What makes you think you can get away with this? You’ve got another man, haven’t you? You’d never be brave enough to do this on your own—”