For sixty seconds, neither of them moved. Allison wasn’t sure they even breathed. ‘Right, here goes.’ She picked up the phone, tapped a few keys and stared at the screen.

‘Well?’ Jo’s voice was sharp with impatience. ‘Come on, is it there?’

‘Not two million, no.’

‘The bitch! How much?’

‘Four.’

Jo reached a hand to grab the phone, missing as Allison reared back. ‘Four… four hundred, is that all the miserable cow thinks your threat is worth?’

‘No.’ Allison held out the phone, turning it to show Jo the screen. ‘She’s sent four million.’

75

Before Allison or Jo had time to react to the four million pounds, the doorbell rang, their heads swivelling in unison to stare through the open door to the hall as if, any moment, the bell ringer was going to materialise.

‘Ignore it,’ Jo said, turning back to stare at the phone. ‘Did Portia make a mistake? Or maybe she thought you were asking for two mil each?’

Allison had already considered and quickly discounted that idea. She’d never referenced giving money to anyone else. And nobody made such a colossal mistake. Portia was a lot of things; stupid wasn’t one of them. The repeated chime broke into her thoughts and drove her to her feet. ‘Hang on, I’ll get rid of whoever it is.’

She had no reason to be wary of opening the door. The most irritating of her visitors was, after all, already inside. It might be the police, of course, with an update on the investigation into Peter’s death. Opening the door with little interest, she wasn’t expecting to be surprised, certainly wasn’t expecting to be shocked. She was both. Her first instinct was to shut the door in the woman’s face.

‘Wait, please!’

Allison wasn’t interested in doing anything Portia said. A woman who’d lied to her, drugged her, locked her in that awful room. A woman who’d have stood by while her husband assaulted her. It was no thanks to her that it hadn’t happened.

That was thanks to a different odd woman.

Allison was surrounded by them.

‘Please.’

The pathetic one word worked where the demand hadn’t. Allison, last of the suckers, sighed and opened the door wide enough to speak to the woman on her doorstep.

Portia. But looking less Portia-like than usual. Gone were the dark, arched eyebrows. The waves of lustrous black hair had been replaced by a short, steel-grey bob. The pallor on her cheeks wasn’t due to her usual pale foundation, her skin patchy with age marks and sun damage. She wore lipstick but it was badly applied and leaked over the edges, giving her a sad, clown-like appearance.

And, equally odd, there was a large suitcase at her feet.

Allison didn’t care, didn’t want to know, but still found herself asking, ‘You going somewhere?’