‘You deserved it, you twat. And how dare you drop me in it.’

‘Mike, you’ve got to help me.’

‘Go fuck yourself.’

He slammed the phone down, leaving Jamie with the taste of bile in his mouth. That bastard. That fucking…

Who was he trying to kid? He did deserve it. He had broken his promise, he had behaved like a moron. He didn’t blame Mike for not talking to him.

He had to face it: he was never going to see that money again.

He stood up and looked out at the street. He had lost all his money, his job, his best friend, his wife and his baby. All that remained in his possession was this flat. It was the only thing he had left to cling on to. If he moved out of the flat he would have lost absolutely everything. He felt like he’d been playing that board game, Risk, in which each player starts off with a group of countries and has to guard their own countries while trying to take over other people’s. The winner was the one who took over the world, capturing all his opponent’s territories. Jamie had started the game with Kirsty, Paul, his money and his job; he had acquired the flat and was soon going to have a baby. Now almost everything he had started with, and everything he had acquired, had been lost to his opponents downstairs. All apart from one last territory: his flat.

He was not going to relinquish it. He would guard it with his life. No matter what Lucy or Chris did, no matter what attacks they tried, no matter how the dice fell, he was staying here. He would work out some way of paying the mortgage. He was not moving.

He was not going to lose.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Twenty-seven

The letter arrived on a Tuesday morning.

The night before, he had eaten the last of the food he had bought on his final trip to the supermarket, and had lain awake half the night wondering what he was going to do. The quickest solution was to sell something. He didn’t want to sell any of his possessions, but the most obvious thing was his Playstation 3 and accompanying collection of games. He still had the games console’s original box, so he packed it up and put it by the door, along with a bag of games.

He walked down the hill with the box held out in front of him. There was no petrol left in his car, but luckily there was a shop nearby that bought second hand goods like computer games and videos.

The man in the shop offered him £50 for the lot. Jamie haggled and ended up with £65. On the way home he stopped at the local Co-Op and bought enough groceries to last a few days. He also bought more cigarettes and another bottle of vodka; the other one was long gone.