As she whizzed past him, she saw that it was a shotgun which he’d just loaded and snapped shut. She caught the grim determination on his face as he raised it to his shoulder and brought it to bear upon her.

She pressed down harder on the accelerator, the car flying ahead, simultaneously ducking down as the shotgun roared behind her, blowing out the back window of the Range Rover.

Sitting up again, unscathed by the shotgun blast, she glanced in the rear-view mirror to see his tall figure receding into the distance as the car sped away from the restaurant.

Pulling out sharply onto the main road, she turned the vehicle in the direction of London and Frank’s house, and just hoped, against all odds, that it wasn’t too late to save him.

72

Frank picked up a handful of Texas BBQ Sauce-flavoured Pringles from the bowl on the coffee table and put them in his mouth. They were Isabel’s favourite flavour and he’d purchased them especially for her visit, along with the Haribo Tangfastics which filled yet another bowl. He himself had consumed more of both of them than she had so far this evening though. Whenever his five-year-old daughter came round to visit it provided a good excuse for him to buy junk food that he secretly enjoyed under the auspices that it was for her. He’d have to watch it though – his waistline had been growing somewhat larger recently, what with all those kebabs he’d been getting through. On reflection, perhaps it hadn’t been the best idea to set up the temporary HQ above a kebab shop; maybe next time he’d try and pick somewhere close to a gym.

Isabel was sitting next to him on the sofa engrossed in Frozen which was playing on the TV. She loved Frozen and watched it repeatedly, never seeming to tire of it. That was why Frank had thought it a good idea to invest in the DVD, so she could watch it whenever she came round, even if it meant he had to put up with yet another rendition of that blasted song which he knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of his head for the next twenty-four hours. But it was worth it.

He loved seeing his daughter and knew he didn’t see her enough, painfully aware that it was his own relentless dedication to his career that lay to blame. He’d let his job destroy his marriage and now his ex-wife, Joanna, had found happiness in another man’s arms. In fact, he thought, with a vague unease, they were probably doing exactly that right now – making love in some expensive foreign hotel. Roland – wealthy as he was – had whisked her off on an eight-day romantic break to Cuba, which was the whole reason that Frank was taking care of Isabel. Quite often he wished he’d done things differently in his marriage so it hadn’t come to this, with him having to wait to spend time with his daughter, but if he was to be honest with himself, he knew that he was too heavily into his job to have given it up even if he’d tried.