The Back Road

29

Ellie was covering a shift for one of the other nurses that afternoon, and the ICU was busy when she arrived at the hospital. An accident on the motorway had resulted in the admission of a couple of other patients, but none of their injuries were quite so bad as Abbie’s, and Ellie was pleased to be told that she would be nursing the young girl again today. As she walked through the unit she could see Kath Campbell in her usual spot, her chair drawn as close to Abbie as she could get, with one hand gently stroking her daughter’s arm. But today she seemed to have lost all control and tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.

‘Kath?’ Ellie said quietly. She crouched down by the side of Kath’s chair. ‘What is it? I’ve checked with the other nurses, and they say Abbie’s no worse - what’s upsetting you so much?’ She took Kath’s other hand between her two.

‘It’s my fault she’s like this. It’s all my fault,’ Kath sobbed. She was clearly finding it difficult to speak, and Ellie stroked her hand.

‘Of course it’s not. Listen, I’m going to get you a glass of water, then you can tell me all about it. Okay?’

Asking the nurse on the next bed to keep an eye open for Abbie, Ellie made her way towards the nurses’ station. She could understand why Abbie’s mum felt the way she did; she knew that if anything happened to the twins, she would inevitably feel that it was all her fault - whether it was or not.

As she was getting a plastic cup of water from the cooler, one of the student nurses grabbed her.

‘Come with me, Ellie. I’ve got something to show you.’

Ellie looked at her wide grin and couldn’t help reciprocating as she was dragged into the office.

‘Ta da!’ she exclaimed, pointing her hand theatrically to a huge arrangement of flowers on the desk. ‘Look what’s just arrived. Aren’t they gorgeous?’

Every single flower was a rose, in every shade of yellow and apricot imaginable.

Ellie felt the blood draining from her face, but the student nurse was chattering on.

‘The note is so thoughtful - do want me to tell you what it says?’

Totally missing the point that Ellie hadn’t said a word, she began to read.

‘“For Abbie. Wishing her a speedy recovery and offering special and sincere love to those wonderful nurses who care for her.” It doesn’t say who it’s from, but how nice is that?’ she said, turning her beaming face to Ellie. ‘I know we can’t have them on the ward, but you should take them home with you. They’re completely fabulous, aren’t they?’

Ellie forced herself to smile. The student was so enraptured by the truly magnificent flowers that she failed to notice Ellie’s shock.

‘Do you know what?’ Ellie said. ‘I think we should give them to Kath to take home. Take the card off, and say they came for Abbie. Thanks for showing me, but I need to get back.’

She knew that her less than enthusiastic response had been noted, but she didn’t care. She had to pull herself together and get on with her work. What was he thinking?

By the time she returned to the bedside, Kath was calmer and Ellie handed her the water and sat down in the spare chair, mentally telling herself to focus, focus, focus.

‘Okay, Kath, tell me what’s happened since I was here last. Something’s obviously made you feel worse, so talk to me. Maybe I can help.’

‘I’ve been a fool. I gave in to pressure, even though I wasn’t happy about it. I only let her use Facebook because everybody else was doing it. If I’d said no, she’d have been the only one in her class, and she was enough of a loner as it was - not that it was her fault, poor lamb. And now the police believe that it was Facebook that caused the problem.’

Ellie didn’t interrupt. Kath had to tell this in her own time.

‘She made a new friend on Facebook. Chloe she’s called. It was a few months ago now. Chloe contacted her completely out of the blue - and Abbie was so chuffed. She’d tried asking the girls in her class to be Facebook friends, you see, and a lot of them had just ignored her. Why is it that some teenage girls can be so horrible to each other? She’d only got about half a dozen friends, and then this girl Chloe contacted her. She said her family were hoping to move to Little Melham over the summer, and if they did, she’d be starting school here. Her dad was being relocated, and she was looking forward to getting to know other girls from the school. Abbie checked her out, and she had quite a few friends in Durham where she lived. She and Abbie chatted all the time, and Abbie was so happy that she was going to be the first one in her class to know this girl. She said she’d told Chloe things about herself that she’d never been able to tell any other girls at school, and I was so pleased for her. She talked about Chloe all the time, and we almost felt as if we knew her ourselves.’

Ellie squeezed Kath’s hand reassuringly, wondering what this could possibly have to do with Abbie getting knocked over.

Kath swallowed a sob. ‘The police can’t find Abbie’s phone, but they’ve pieced together what happened via Facebook.’ Kath pulled a sheet of paper from her handbag, and passed it to Ellie. ‘This is the last of the messages between Abbie and Chloe on Friday night. Chloe and her mum were arranging to pick Abbie up from the back of the burger place.’

Ellie quickly scanned the messages, which seemed reassuringly normal.

‘That’s good isn’t it? At least now you know where she went and why. What do Chloe and her mother have to say?’

‘Nothing. They have nothing at all to say. That’s the whole point. There is no Chloe. She doesn’t exist.

* * *

Ellie hadn’t been able to get anything coherent out of Kath after that last dreadful sentence, so she had decided to break all the rules and for once make her a cup of tea.

By the time she returned to the bedside, Kath had calmed down and her mood had changed. Her lips were clamped together in a tight line, and her body was taut with tension. Ellie placed the hot tea on the bedside cabinet to cool down a little.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kath said. ‘I shouldn’t be burdening you with all this. It was such a shock, though.’

‘You’re not burdening me at all. But you said Chloe had friends in her home town. Wouldn’t they have known that she didn’t exist?’

‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Except the friends don’t exist either,’ Kath answered. The anger simmered right below the surface. ‘It was a charade - don’t you see? The whole thing. Pretending to move to the area, making up friends - all so that Chloe seemed real to Abbie - so that she could get to know everything about her.’ Kath looked at Ellie with eyes round with horror. The next words sound as if they were being wrenched from deep within her. ‘She was abducted, Ellie. My baby girl was abducted.’

Abducted? How could something like this happen around here?

Ellie felt as if cold water was running down her spine. But if it was too much for Ellie to deal with, how must it be for Kath? No wonder she was angry. Ellie would want to murder anybody that hurt her children with her bare hands.

But she was still puzzled. Chloe didn’t exist, but whoever had abducted Abbie must know the area, because they knew where the burger bar was. Did this mean they were local? Oh God, what if it was somebody that she knew? Ellie shuddered.

Kath was talking as if to herself, not worrying whether anybody was listening or not.

‘It’s unbelievable. That somebody could plan this - somebody would harm a child. Just unbelievable.’

Kath reached out a shaky hand for her tea, and nudged the cup, splashing some of the hot liquid onto Abbie’s arm.

‘Oh God, and now I’m trying to burn the poor child. What a useless mother I am.’

Kath put the cup down and started to mop Abbie’s arm. But Ellie wasn’t paying attention. She was watching Abbie, positive that when the hot tea hit her, her arm moved away just a fraction. Ellie jumped up and moved to Abbie’s feet.

‘Did you see that?’ Ellie asked. Kath’s face was suddenly bright with expectation as she watched Ellie run her usual tests. They weren’t actually due, but if Kath believed that her accident with the hot tea had brought Abbie out of her coma, that was absolutely fine by Ellie.

And there was no doubt about it. The coma was definitely lightening

‘This is great news. She’s starting to respond to pain. We’ve got a long way to go, but it’s the first positive sign we’ve had since Abbie was brought in. I know the doctor has explained to you that coming round from a coma isn’t like it is on the TV. She’s not suddenly going to sit up and start talking - but this is a very good sign. Do you want to go and call Brian and tell him? I’ll sit here with her, don’t worry.’

Kath was clearly torn between staying with Abbie and phoning her husband, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him not knowing.

‘I’ll be two minutes - that’s all. I promise.’

Grabbing her mobile phone from her handbag, she dashed for the door.

Ellie sat down by the bed, and started stroking Abbie’s head - just as she had done the day before. She had checked out some of the words to Abbie’s favourite song as well, and memorised the chorus. She started to sing very softly, close to Abbie’s ear. This was all that mattered now. Abbie recovering.

But even the words of the song couldn’t drive out the knowledge that somebody - somebody not too far away from here - had ruthlessly planned and executed the abduction of a teenage girl.





30

The route to Penny and Gary’s house was imprinted on Leo’s brain, as they lived right next door to Ellie and Max’s previous home. She remembered that they had two young girls and as it was the school holidays, there was every chance they would be at home. She hoped she would get a chance to chat to Penny alone, though. With any luck on this bright, sunny day the girls would have found something better to do with themselves than sit around watching TV, chatting on their computers, or playing online games, although any recent experience Leo had had with kids of this age didn’t give her much hope.

Leo had decided to call on Penny to see if she’d had any more thoughts about the life coaching session, because in her view if anybody needed it, Penny did. As she approached the house, she looked at it with interest. The garden was beyond immaculate, far too much order and uniformity for her taste. Somebody had gone berserk with the bedding plants, and the garden was full of colour; but each plant was equidistant from the next and in a regular pattern - one red, one blue, one white. She wasn’t sure if it was patriotism or a desire for high impact that had dictated the colour scheme, but either way it was a bit extreme. The front lawn was a neat square with crisply trimmed edges, and at each corner stood an identical pyramid shaped shrub. Leo thought they were probably conifers, but since the only plant she could identify with any reliability was a rose, this was just her best guess.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement at one of the windows. But when she turned her head to look properly, she couldn’t see anybody. She had always thought it strange that a man who had aspirations to be an architect had chosen to live in a house like this. There was nothing wrong with it, but it was a flat fronted nineteen seventies detached house with nothing to differentiate it from its neighbours - apart from the fact that most of them, including Ellie and Max’s old house, were semi-detached. The curtains at the windows looked unnecessarily fussy to Leo, and she could see that they were tied back with care so that the windows upstairs and down looked identical. She could just make out some flouncy pelmet on the inside as she walked up the drive. There were no more signs of life, though.

Leo rang the bell and waited. Nothing. Not a sound from inside the house. But there was somebody there, she was sure of it. She rang again, but still nothing. How weird. Maybe Penny hadn’t seen her approaching the house, and had gone out into the back garden. Leo decided to walk round the side of the house and see if Penny was there. Lifting the latch on the gate to the back garden, Leo called out softly not wanting to startle Penny if she hadn’t heard the doorbell.

‘Penny, it’s Leo. Are you there?’

She made her way through the gate from the drive to the rear of the house. But the back garden was empty. This area was neatly and precisely arranged too, but fortunately not with symmetrical rows of annuals. Here there were beds of perfectly pruned roses interspersed with lavender. In one corner stood a small stone statue of a lady, emptying water onto some white pebbles. The perfect water feature, Leo thought with a smile. Against the fence was a large wooden slatted kennel, with its own two patches of neat and tidy grass, edged with a low hedge. Even the dog, it would appear, needed pristine surroundings.

Leo didn’t want to appear nosey by peering through the window, but as she approached the sliding patio doors which led through to the lounge, she was shocked to see Penny crouching behind a sofa, trying to hide from whoever had arrived at the front door. How awful. Penny clearly didn’t want visitors, and Leo had no desire to force herself on anybody. She needed to get away before Penny saw her.

The decision was taken out of her hands as Penny and Gary’s elderly and partially deaf Jack Russell became aware of her presence and trotted across the lawn starting to yap - a shrill, piercing noise which had driven Max to issue threats to strangle the dog on more than one occasion. Leo bent down, facing away from the window.

‘Hello, Smudge. How’re you doing, old man?’ She knew Penny would have heard, but by focusing on Smudge Leo was giving her time to get up from behind the sofa and they could at least pretend that this was all perfectly normal.

The patio door slid open, and Leo could hear Penny’s timid voice but couldn’t see her.

‘Leo - what a surprise. Give me a moment and I’ll be with you.’

Leo waited patiently outside, scratching Smudge on his fat tummy as he lay on the floor with all four legs in the air.

‘Not too old for a tickle then, are you Smudge,’ she said with a smile. She heard Penny’s feet thudding up the stairs through the open doorway, and wondered what was going on. Sadly she wasn’t surprised when Penny reappeared wearing a cardigan that she hadn’t had on before, and sporting a pair of large sunglasses. But not quite large enough.

‘Sorry to keep you, Leo. I thought as it’s such a nice day we could sit outside. Would you like some coffee or tea?’

Leo didn’t want either, but she needed to help Penny get past this difficult moment.

‘I’d love a cup of tea, Penny. Thanks. I’ll come and talk to you while you make it, shall I?’

‘No need,’ Penny answered in a breezy voice.

‘It’s no problem - Smudge has had my undivided attention for five minutes, so I’ll come in with you.’

Penny had managed to avoid looking directly at Leo, keeping her head down to look at Smudge, and now in the kitchen she had her back turned as she prepared the tea. But the sunglasses had stayed on, even in the dark kitchen. Leo felt anger well up inside her, but knew that it wouldn’t be appropriate to voice her feelings.

‘Are the girls not at home today?’

Penny gave a jerky shake of the head.

‘Gary took them to his mother’s and he’s left them there for a week. We were all supposed to be going on holiday, but Gary was concerned about a big project that’s coming up. Even though he’s off work on annual leave, he wants to be available. He says it’s not something that will wait.’

Leo’s face remained blank. Gary had never struck her as so diligent in his job that he would cancel a holiday, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to say so. She wondered whether he had made that decision before or after his wife had taken to wearing sunglasses in the house. What a bastard. She had to put Penny at ease, though.

‘The gardens are looking impeccable. Who’s the gardener then? You?’ Leo asked.

Although she laughed, Penny’s voice was shaky.

‘Me? No, I’m afraid not. Gary likes it to be perfect, and I don’t get my lines right. The house is my domain. I seem to do better at keeping the curtains straight than I do the lawn edging. And I like making curtains and cushions - especially if they’re a bit complicated and I have to think about it.’

Leo looked through the wide opening from the kitchen to the dining end of the long through lounge, and could see exactly what Penny meant. Every peach and cream curtain and cushion had some sort of frill attached.

‘Well. I’m glad I managed to catch you on your own. You mentioned on Saturday that you might be interested in finding out a bit more about life coaching, so if you’ve got time for a chat now I can tell you all about it and you can decide if you’d like a session.’

The tin of tea bags clattered onto the worktop and Penny cast a nervous glance at Leo.

‘I’m sorry, Leo, but that won’t be necessary. I think it was the wine talking on Saturday. Gary was ever so cross. He said I’d given everybody the impression that there must be something wrong with my life - and of course there isn’t.’

Leo wasn’t at all surprised by this. ‘Where is Gary today? If he was here, I’d be happy to tell you both about it and put his mind at rest. It’s not about anything being wrong - it’s about what you could do to make life even better.’

‘He’s gone to take the Porsche back. I think it was supposed to go back yesterday - the three days were up. But he couldn’t bear to part with it. He’s very fond of nice things, is Gary.’

Penny splashed the milk into the saucer of her cup as she poured it.

‘Oh dear. I didn’t mean that to sound judgemental. He works so hard, he deserves the best of everything.’

Penny attempted an apologetic laugh as she cleaned up the spilt milk, but Leo could hear the quiver in her voice. The two women picked up their cups of tea and made their way out onto the terrace to sit at a small wooden table. It was a real sun trap, and perspiration gathered quickly on Penny’s top lip and forehead.

‘You know,’ Leo continued, ‘I get it that Gary doesn’t want you to talk to me, but it doesn’t need to be a proper session. We can just chat. And it’s not about finding fault with relationships. It’s about identifying where you want your life to go, and making sure that you’re both heading in the same direction. It’s really not about tearing things down. It’s more about building them up.’

Penny hadn’t lifted her head, and Leo wasn’t surprised to see a tear trickling down her face. Reaching into her handbag, she grabbed a clean tissue from the pack she always kept handy, and passed one across the table.

‘There you go, use that. And Penny,’ she said very gently, ‘you can take your glasses off. I know you’ve got a black eye - I can see the bruising below. It’s okay.’

Penny started to weep in earnest, knowing that her secret was out. But still she tried to deny what Leo knew was the truth.

‘I fell. It was a silly accident, and I caught my eye.’

Leo had been through this with other women so many times, and it never failed to infuriate her that somehow the victims were always the ones who felt impelled to lie. She would love to be able to give Penny a hug now, but she didn’t know how. Her own upbringing had seen to that.

These situations usually followed the same pattern though. The hardest thing of all was admitting that something was actually wrong; that you were allowing yourself - because that’s how it felt - to be mistreated. Once the floodgates were opened and the irrational sense of guilt and shame removed, she knew that Penny wouldn’t be able to stop and she hoped that Gary didn’t get home too soon.

The first thing that Leo had to do was to help Penny to admit the truth. It was a bit like lancing a boil - make the first incision and watch all the nasty stuff come oozing out.

‘Penny, I know that Gary hurts you. I know it - I’m not just guessing.’

Penny looked up with an angry stare, tears pouring down her battered face.

‘No he doesn’t. You’re wrong. He would never hurt me on purpose. He loves me.’

‘I’m sure he does, but I also know that he hurts you. Listen, on the night of Ellie’s dinner party, I was sitting opposite you - do you remember? Well, right behind you was a huge mirror. When you were talking to Tom, Gary put his arm round you. Everybody would have thought it was an act of affection - but I saw Penny. He lifted the sleeve of your dress and put his hand inside. Then he pinched you. Hard. And you weren’t surprised. It made you jump and spill your wine, but only with pain, not with shock. So it wasn’t the first time. And anyway, I could see other bruises on your arm. That’s why I wanted to get you out of there.’

Penny’s face was flushed with more than the tears. It was a flush of deep embarrassment.

‘I’m so ashamed,’ Penny whispered.

‘I know that’s how you feel. But you shouldn’t. You’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. For some reason, it seems to be human nature to take responsibility for other people’s actions. But Gary’s the one who should be ashamed, not you.’

Bullies were often arrogant bastards, though, and Leo could bet money on Gary managing to believe that none of this was his fault. She prided herself on her cool detachment with clients, but today it was letting her down as she looked at this broken woman, who was still trying to defend her useless husband.

Penny shook her head with some force.

‘No, Leo. You don’t understand. He doesn’t mean to do it. It’s only when something has happened that’s disappointed him. He struggles to control himself at those times. But we can go weeks with him being happy. He can be quite affectionate then.’

Leo could picture the scenes in this house. She sensed that Penny would be practically delirious with joy and gratitude if Gary hadn’t hurt her for a week or two. But it would be a type of manic euphoria, as part of Penny’s unconscious mind waited for the inevitability of the next time he would turn on her.

‘What do the girls think, Penny? Doesn’t it upset them?’ Leo asked.

‘They don’t know. It’s not usually his fists, you see. But when I said I was going to talk to you about my hopes for the future, he lost it completely.’ Penny blew her nose, and Leo felt a stab of guilt that she had caused this to happen.

Penny continued. ‘But there’s something else bothering him, I know that. His reaction was too strong for a simple suggestion that I talk to you. He went absolutely berserk - there’s no other word for it. That’s why he had to take the girls away - because there was no hiding this.’ Penny pointed to her eye. ‘I had to say I was ill, and the girls weren’t allowed to see me in case I was contagious. We couldn’t let them catch a glimpse of my face.’

As well as the tears on Penny’s cheeks, beads of sweat were standing out on her face and neck.

‘You know, you could take your cardigan off,’ Leo said softly. ‘I know about your arms, and there’s nobody else here. You’ll pass out in this heat.’

She slowly did as Leo suggested, and from her painful movements Leo guessed that it wasn’t only her eye that had suffered a punching from Gary’s fists. But she studiously avoided looking at Penny’s arms, and focused on stirring the cup of tea that she didn’t want to drink. Once Penny had managed to remove the cardigan, she sat clasping both arms as if to hide the bruises, but when it became obvious that Leo wasn’t looking and wasn’t about to comment, she seemed to relax slightly.

Leo didn’t let her eyes stray. She looked either at her cup of tea, or at Penny’s face. In her peripheral vision, though, she could see that most of the bruises were to the soft flesh on the underside of the arms - the part that would undoubtedly be the most painful.

‘When did it start, Penny? Is this a recent thing?’

Letting her arms fall to her sides, Penny looked up to the sky, as if that would stop the tears from falling.

‘We hadn’t been married long. We got married when Gary was at university. He was doing his architect training - you’ve probably heard about that. He says I was the reason he failed his exams, but it’s not true. He was obsessed with me. I hadn’t wanted to get married so young, but he was insistent. He didn’t want anybody else to have me. And then I got pregnant. I didn’t want to tell Gary because I didn’t want to distract him from his finals. I decided to tell him on the night of his results - a double reason to celebrate, I thought.’

Penny gulped back the tears and wiped her eyes. She lowered her head and looked at Leo.

‘But he failed. He was so desperately disappointed, but I couldn’t believe it when he blamed me. He said it was my fault that he’d failed - he was spending too much time looking after me, and not enough time on his studies. He started to hit me. And then he got me on the floor and he kicked me. He didn’t know I was pregnant, though. It wasn’t his fault.’

Leo could feel this poor woman’s pain.

‘Penny,’ Leo said gently, ‘it’s not about whose fault it is. It’s not about blame. It’s about stopping it happening again. One of the first steps is admitting that it is happening, and you’ve done that now. Does Ellie know?’

‘No. Nobody knows. As I said, he rarely hits me. He likes to pinch me - not only on my arms. His favourite place is…’ Penny paused and mopped her streaming eyes with the now soggy tissue. Leo fished in her bag for another one and passed it over without a word.

‘He likes to pinch the underside of my breasts. And it hurts, Leo. It really, really hurts. I’d rather he hit me, if I’m honest. But nobody sees, and I have spent the last few years of my life learning not to cry out when he does it. But it only happens when something has upset him. It’s just that in the last few weeks, especially this last week, he seems more upset that usual. That’s why. It’s not always so bad.’

Leo didn’t know how she was going to get Penny to stop excusing Gary’s behaviour, and she knew better than to ask about the child that Penny had been carrying. If this had been when Gary finished his training, both their girls were far too young, so she could only assume that Penny had lost the baby. Leo felt a strong desire to inflict some bodily pain on Gary herself, and she knew exactly where she would like to hit him.

‘Do you have any idea why Gary’s more upset this week? Has he told you?’

Penny’s head dropped to her chest, but there was the slightest nod. Leo waited.

‘It’s another woman.’

Leo felt a heaviness in her chest. Could this get any worse?

‘Has he told you that he’s got another woman?’

Penny didn’t react for some time, but she was clearly trying to find the words - words that would somehow make the situation seem better than it was.

‘There have been times over the years that Gary has needed another interest. He gets bored easily, and sometimes that interest has been another woman. I’ve always known, and he hasn’t tried to hide it. I can’t explain, Leo. It’s too difficult.’

Leo stood up and made her way into the kitchen. She was going to fetch Penny a glass of water, and give her a bit of space. If she’d never admitted any of this in the past, the pain must be ripping her in two.

By the time she returned, Penny had wiped her eyes and put her sunglasses back on. Leo placed the glass on the table, and sat down.

‘You don’t have to tell me, Penny. I know this must be almost impossible for you. But I think you have to tell somebody. If you don’t want it to be me, I’ll find you somebody who can help. That’s a promise.’

Penny gave a half laugh and blew her nose.

‘I can’t do this again. Now that I’ve started, it would be easier to tell you, if you don’t mind.’

Resting her hands in her lap and sitting up straighter, as if to give herself strength, Penny unleashed a torrent of words, spoken quickly as if that way she could get it over with as fast as possible.

‘The trouble with Gary is that he likes the chase. He loves to woo women, and he loves them to be bowled over by him. He’d got me, and not only was I his, but he was able to treat me any way he wanted, and I never complained. How sad does that make me? But in the early days, each time he was horrible, I withdrew a bit from him, and he had to woo me back to being in love with him. And then it would all start again; I would withdraw some more, and he would court me. It was a cycle, but when he was trying to coax me back to loving him, he was amazing. In the early days, each time he turned nasty I would start to think of leaving, and then he would lay on the charm. He brought me flowers, jewellery, took me out, cooked for me - you name it, he did it. He became a gentle and considerate lover, instead of demanding what he wanted all the time. And then when I was his again, he would gradually start to have the odd mean moment. It was as if he wanted to see how far he could push me.’

Penny stopped and took a sip of water. Leo didn’t move. She wanted nothing to distract Penny. It was almost as if by telling this tale, she was seeing Gary for the first time. She put the glass down.

‘Eventually, it stopped working. I neither withdrew, nor could I be wooed. It was always just more of the same, and I was no fun anymore. But by then, we had children. I’ve never worked. Not really. If I left Gary, I have no idea what I would do. I’m not a strong person who’s organised enough to find somewhere to live, pack up everything for the girls and move out. And he doesn’t do it all the time - usually he stops when he has a distraction. That’s where the other women come in. He woos them until he wins them. He chooses the most difficult people because then it will take time for him to succeed. You know how good looking he is. And he can be so charming. Those flowers that we brought to Ellie’s on Saturday night - you should have seen the care he took in selecting them from the garden. They were all our flowers, not bought ones. He said he wanted every bloom in the bouquet to be absolutely flawless - we had to impress our rich friends. So he spent ages selecting each one. That’s how he used to be with me - always making sure that everything he did for me was perfect.’

‘What makes you think he’s got a new woman now, if he’s still being aggressive with you?’ Leo asked.

‘Because I don’t think this relationship is going to plan. I don’t think she’s falling under his spell. She’s resisting, and he’s taking it out on me.’

‘But how do you know this if he hasn’t told you?’ Leo asked, with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘I told you the other night that I don’t take a sleeping pill if Gary’s out. He doesn’t know, though. I always pretend to be fast asleep, and I know he thinks I’m dead to the world. On Friday, he was out until very late. It was after one o’clock when he got in, and he was in a foul mood. I pretended to be asleep, but he stomped around the bedroom and banged the bathroom door with such force that I thought it was going to come off its hinges. I knew he’d been with a woman. Nothing else would make him so mad.’