Allison ate a few mouthfuls before she put her fork down and pushed the tray onto the sofa beside her. The glass of wine sat untouched on the coffee table. She reached for it, took a sip then put it down. Maybe, after all, alcohol wasn’t a good idea. She felt Jo’s eyes on her, examining her in an almost predatory fashion. Allison owed her; it wasn’t a sensation she enjoyed.

‘I haven’t thanked you for coming to my rescue. You probably saved my life.’

‘I thought you were hiding out there. From me.’ Jo shrugged and scraped the last of the lasagne from her plate with a noisy screech of metal on china before tossing the fork down and lifting her glass. ‘I thought you were trying to do me out of my share.’

It seemed the better option to feign forgetfulness. ‘Your share?’

Jo emptied her glass in two noisy gulps and slammed it down on the table. ‘I know you’ve been through a lot but please, don’t treat me like a fool. My share of your beloved, much-lamented late husband’s estate. The two million we settled on for my keeping quiet about your presence in the station when your husband accidentally fell in front of a train.’

Allison nodded slowly. ‘I owe you a lot for saving me—’

Jo interrupted her. ‘How did they do it?’

‘You want the details, do you?’ Allison couldn’t blame her. She’d have wanted to know how an intelligent woman had been so easily conned. ‘Portia, it seems, set me up. The friendship, etc., was all an act to get my trust. I think my marriage to Peter threw her for a while; I saw less of her while we were married. That morning after you’d left, she called around and invited me to lunch. Getting out of the house seemed like a good plan so I went.’ She shook her head. ‘Bad idea. She gave me drugged Prosecco. When I woke, it was in that room. On that bed.’ The memory stopped her words for several minutes.

‘They look such a normal couple.’

‘I’m not the first.’ Allison told Jo about Amy. ‘I’m guessing there were women before her too.’

‘You think they killed Amy?’

‘No, I think she might have killed herself. I’d have done so if I’d had the chance rather than stay locked up in that room.’

‘Did they… you know…’

‘No, I was spared that horror.’ She remembered Stuart’s lascivious eyes and shivered. ‘It was only a matter of time, though.’ She reached a hand to feel her damaged ribs. ‘Maybe they were afraid to do anything until all my bruises had healed.’ She saw a question in Jo’s eyes. Perhaps she was being too careful of Allison’s sensibilities to ask whatever it was. ‘What’s puzzling you?’

‘When the drugs wore off, couldn’t you have fought back?’