At the age of forty-five, Lucy Henshaw ran away from home. The decision to go had been reached neither lightly nor suddenly, since the urge to clear off had existed for about eighteen years, but Lucy believed in duty, so she hung in there until the time was right. It was now or never, so it was now. The millennium had happened, and a new beginning seemed appropriate.

Nevertheless, a degree of trepidation accompanied the proposed exit, since she was leaving behind roots that went deep, and she found herself hoping against hope itself that she might survive without nutrients whose values were beyond the limits of ordinary calculation.

Another difficulty was the suspicion that she might be running from, rather than towards. A new beginning? No. It was merely an ending, a cutting away of rotted flesh in an effort to save what was left of her normal, original self. She now knew where she would be living by this afternoon, and there was a vague idea of how she might occupy her new persona. Beyond that loomed a vacuum, since her children were grown. ‘Sometimes, I wonder whether you are really sane, Lucy,’ she told herself. Yet it had to be done, quickly, quietly and with as little fuss as possible.

Tallows was not just the matrimonial home; it had been in her family for four generations. ‘I was born here,’ she told a photograph of her parents. ‘You already know that, Mother, because your attendance was compulsory.’ She placed the item in a carrier bag, where it joined photos of her twin sons and her daughter. At last, the children were old enough. Would they understand? Advised by her only friend to explain to them in full every detail, Lucy had refused. She didn’t want her offspring involved in war. Because Alan would throw several fits and would take no responsibility for his wife’s behaviour. He was a ruined man, and their mother had caused all the damage. She would go softly. Since she had done most things quietly thus far, she would be acting in character; no one would be surprised by her lower-than-ever profile.

So Lucy had sent them simple messages just to say that she was leaving, and that her reasons for this were not easy to explain. They had busy lives, plenty to do, friends all over the country. They would endure the blow. These thoughts chased one another across her mind as she walked for the last time through the house she loved.

Her dolls’ house was in the attic. Lizzie had played with it too, had grown out of it, and the large, fully furnished treasure had been returned to the top storey for future generations. ‘I wish I could explain, Lizzie. But I can’t be the means of destroying the love you have for Dad.’ It would all come out eventually, and Lucy was used to waiting.

She stroked the rocking horse. Its mane, made from real horsehair, had been depleted by several children who had hung on to it, and it needed repair. But she couldn’t save these important things, because she trusted no one enough to allow the removal of mementos. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Dobbin. Dolls, teddy bears, dartboards, story books, toy soldiers, cars and jigsaw puzzles were piled on shelves. It would all go. Once the receivers moved in, there would be nothing left. If the receivers moved in. According to Lucy’s lawyer, the house would remain Lucy’s property, but nothing in life was ever absolutely certain. ‘I couldn’t risk a removals van, because I need not to be noticed, so I have to abandon you to the winds of fate. I hope you’ll all be loved by someone.’

The estate was a large one, and its legal owner made her way towards the grounds for a final wander through her family’s domain. She looked again at her apple trees, the vegetable plot, her raspberry canes, and at the swings on which her offspring had played. Father’s rose beds remained. Lucy had tended them, sprayed them, deadheaded and cut them back. Carp in the fish pond had no idea that life was about to change. Would he feed them? Would the gardener feed them? How was the gardener to be paid?

She stood in a kitchen where she had cooked thousands of meals. The cleaner had been and gone, so it was tidy, at least. The library was the place that hurt most. All Father’s leather-bound books were here, and the only item she would manage to save was the family Bible. Still, the situation could not be helped. No matter what, she had to go, and she could take very little with her in an ordinary car.

However, there was a tenuous plan. The house, if he pushed for a settlement and won, would possibly go to auction and, in that situation, Lucy’s representative would attend. It was likely that Alan would sell the contents in an effort to bluff his way out of bankruptcy, but his bills were large. She hoped to save the building, and that had to be enough. It should be hers anyway, because she had signed nothing when loans against the house had been taken out. In the legal sense, she had little to fear.

He would win no settlement, surely? So why was her heartbeat suddenly erratic? Why were her palms so hot and moist? Did she fear the man she had married, the one she sometimes referred to as the big mistake? Alan had never been physically violent, though drink made him angry, and he was now married to whisky. He drifted from woman to woman, though each female in turn saw through him, got bored by his drinking and passed him on to the next victim. ‘Now or never,’ Lucy advised herself.

Where was the cat carrier? Where was the cat? Then the phone rang. She picked it up. ‘Hello?’ She sounded breathless, as if she had run a half-marathon. It was him. For better or worse had been mostly worse. For richer for poorer – he knew how to make a partner poor.

‘I’ll be home in about an hour,’ he said, cutting the connection before she had chance to reply. Smokey, like the carp, would have to be left to chance. Shaking from head to foot, Lucy reversed her car into the lane and drove off. Once her knees belonged to her again, she managed to control the vehicle. She was gone. She was travelling to Liverpool.

So, she left behind two sons, a daughter, a cat, and a drawer filled with unpaid bills. And a husband. He occupied the lowest place on the agenda, because he’d caused all the difficulties right from the start. In a sense, she should be blaming herself, because she’d married beneath her. Lucy had fastened herself to a man who, after landing her with three children, would spend twenty years forging signatures, remortgaging property and bleeding her dry of her inheritance. But now, the worm had turned, and she was in a new place.

‘Then why do I feel so bloody guilty?’ she asked an empty room. Her children were all in further education, they had survived, and she had done her best. It had been a waiting game, because she hadn’t wanted to ruin their lives, and so she had sat back while he had stolen her inheritance, first to start the business, then to further broader commercial interests; also to gamble, and to spend on other women.

‘Tit for tat,’ she muttered. ‘And he was so used to getting his own way, he never noticed what I was doing.’ These words were offered to a bin bag that contained a fraction of her revenge. How would he build an estate of twenty detached, exclusive, executive residences now? That was how he had advertised the project, and land in Bromley Cross hadn’t come cheap. But Lucy now held the wherewithal for bricks, timber, glazing, sand, cement, wages and other essentials in a shiny black plastic bag and in a bank account created by her friend and solicitor, Glenys Barlow. The bag was recyclable, of course. One had to do one’s bit for the planet these days. She allowed herself a wry smile.

It had taken months. Little by little, she had relieved her husband of all ‘his’ money while the purchase of the land had been negotiated, while plans had been drawn, rejected, redrawn, accepted. His fatal mistake had been the holiday he had taken in Crete with one of his women – a hairdresser from Rivington. During those fourteen days, Lucy had taken full advantage of her position as company secretary, and she had ruined him.

Over a period of years, she had learned to copy his signature and, after taking private lessons, she had conquered computers. Her lawyer held in a strongroom all evidence of Alan’s past misdemeanours. If he wanted to fight back from a legal point of view, he would be riding the wrong horse, since his wife, Louisa, once Buckley, now Henshaw, had merely retrieved money to which he had gained access fraudulently. Confident of his wife’s supposed stupidity, Alan Henshaw would not have believed her capable of doing so much harm. Furthermore, she had taken into account inflation, the current value of the money that had been bequeathed to her, and she had left him in a mess. Her children were not in a mess, as she had opened accounts that would see all three through university.

He had been mistaken, because his wife had never been stupid; she had been patient and anxious for her children. Even so, this was a big thing to have done. She looked at her watch. He would have been home for hours by now. She lifted from the refuse bag a copy of a letter printed out this morning at home. No, not home – she didn’t live there any more. He could well be reading it now. He would have kittens even before reaching the final paragraph.

Alan,

For a very long time, I sat back and watched while you stole from the joint account. I saw money disappearing from my own personal account, and landing in yours or in the company’s records. I also know that you forged my signature several times to remortgage the family home, which was left to me by my parents.

Evidence of your misdeeds is in a safe place, and my representatives know exactly what you have done over the years, so I would advise you to hang fire – go for bankruptcy and take the pain, just as I did.

Why did I wait so long? Because Paul, Mike and Lizzie deserved a chance, and they will have that chance. I have lost a house I love, have abandoned my children, and have left you all the unpaid bills. They are in your sock drawer. It’s very full, so your socks are in the dustbin.

You could never recompense me fully for the agonies I have endured for so long a period of time. Don’t bother trying to find me, because I shall make sure it all comes out if you attempt to harass me in the slightest way.

Louisa Buckley

Powerful stuff. And how she had shaken when typing it. Had she attempted to write by hand, the letter would not have been legible. It was done. It was all done, and there could be no going back.

Right. Here she sat, waiting for carpets and furniture. As she had bought from a local firm, they had agreed to deliver out of hours, and she might be semi-furnished by ten o’clock tonight. With the exception of holidays and stays in hospital, Lucy had never slept away from Tallows, that large and rather regal house built on the outskirts of Bolton by an eighteenth-century candlemaker. She had been born and raised there, had been loved by parents and grandparents, and by a wonderful sister who had died suddenly after being thrown by her pony.

So alone. In this hollow, musty house, there was just Lucy, suitcases in another room, a rickety chair, and a pile of money in a bag. The rest of her fortune was abroad somewhere. Glenys, her only friend, was in charge of all that. A marriage like Lucy’s had attracted few visitors, and she had confided in no one beyond Glenys Barlow. ‘I’m a millionaire,’ she advised the ornate marble fireplace. Yet she felt poor. The bulk of her fortune had been salted away, but Glenys trusted whoever had handled the money, and that was good enough for Lucy.

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