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“What I said. You haven’t given them anything for it, so you’ve taken it under false pretenses. That’s called fraud, in case you didn’t know.”

“There are all kinds of marketing opportunities being put into place,” he shouted. “That’s what they’re paying for. I’m offering worldwide exposure.”

“Since when? And if it’s true, why have you never discussed it with me?”

“I’ve been trying to put it together.”

“How? With whom? And once again, why don’t I know about it? I haven’t found anything on your computer to back this up.”

“You won’t if you’re not looking in the right places. And why am I standing here justifying this as if I’m some sort of criminal?”

“Because I’m very much afraid that’s what you are. As far as I can see, you’ve taken money from people and given them promises you can’t keep.”

“For Christ’s sake…”

“If it was honest, had real integrity and genuine possibility, you’d have told me about it. So where is their money, Jack? What have you done with their savings, their dreams, their trust? You know it was never our intention to charge them.”

“Correction! It was never
your
intention, and if it had been even remotely possible to set up a company without charging the authors, you might have had your way. But it wasn’t. So I did what I had to do to make things work.”

“Like lying about a grant from the Arts Council.”

He flushed. “I was sure it would come through.”

“And exactly how is anything going to
work for the company
when the money’s gone into your personal account? Is it still there?”

“Of course it’s not there. What the hell do you think we’ve been living on all this time?”

Her heart gave a horrible thump. “Are you saying…?” She didn’t want to believe this, she really didn’t. “What’s happened to our savings, your severance pay, my inheritance?” she asked quietly.

“What do you think?” he cried furiously. “It ran out months ago, so I had to think of something to keep us going.”

“And that something was to
cheat
other people out of money that’s probably even more hard-earned than ours? Jesus Christ, what’s the matter with you, Jack? Surely you can see how wrong that is.”

“And it would be right to stop paying our bills, feeding our children, giving them what other kids have?”

“But they never needed smart TVs, iPads, iPods, or whatever the hell else you decided they should have. Oh God, Jack, I can’t believe you’ve done this. If you’d told me we were in trouble, I could have cut back.”

“It’s a bit late to be telling me that now.”

“You never gave me the chance.”

“You didn’t want to hear it.”

“Did you even try?”

“Plenty of times, you just weren’t listening.”

Knowing he was lying, she tried to bring her focus back to the real issue they were facing. “You need to pay that money back to the writers,” she told him forcefully. “If you don’t, you could go to prison. Have you thought about that?”

“Of course I’ve thought about it. And like it or not, the real truth is we both could, which is why it was the stupidest thing you ever did, going to a lawyer before you’d even spoken to me.”

She took a moment to absorb the fact that he’d just admitted to committing a crime. “And what were you going to say to me that would make it all right?” she asked cuttingly. “What quick fix do you have up your sleeve for fraud or embezzlement or whatever the hell it is? Because from where I’m sitting there’s not a single sign of a mitigating circumstance anywhere close to a horizon. You’re talking about marketing packages that don’t exist.”

“That are in the process of being set up.”

“Which means they didn’t exist when you offered them. You’ve taken over twenty thousand pounds from our contributors, which you’ve just admitted to using for our personal expenses, so I want to know what you’re going to do about paying it back. What plans do you have for returning what is rightfully theirs before letters start arriving threatening to sue us? Maybe you’ve already had some. Have you?”

“What I have,” he growled defensively, “is a stack of bills that need paying and nothing to pay them with, unless we carry on charging.”

“Are you out of your mind?” she raged. “We can’t steal any more of their money.”

“Then you’d better come up with another way of making it.”

“And I need to do that on my own?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?”

“I’ll tell you what you’ve been doing,” she shot back. “You’ve been stealing, cheating, living a double life, screwing another woman while I had no idea.”

“Because you didn’t want to know. You never do. You just carry on as though everything is perfect in the world, Jack will provide, Jack will make everything wonderful, even if it’s shit. Well, it’s time to wake up and find out what’s really going on around you, because this is your problem every bit as much as it’s mine, and the only way we’re going to solve it is for you to use what you’ve got left from your advance—or deliver another damned book.”

Jenna’s eyes widened with shock. “Whatever I might have left,” she cried angrily, “belongs to me and the children. It is
not
going to be used to get you out of this mess. You put yourself there—now you can get yourself out.”

“The company belongs to both of us,” he reminded her tightly.

Her mouth fell open. She could hardly believe he’d just said that, much less what it actually meant. “Are you seriously telling me,” she demanded, “that you’re intending to let me, the mother of your children, an innocent party in all this, take the blame for something you know that you did?”

“I did it so we could live,” he shouted. “If you want to see it any other way, that’s up to you.”

She could hardly think straight anymore. In the end she forced herself to look him in the eye. What she saw was a man she couldn’t imagine loving, a man whose morals and integrity were as absent as any sign of regret or compassion. “What changed you?” she asked hoarsely. “What,
who
, turned you into this person?”

He stared at her hard, but she could sense a powerful guilt cracking through his conscience.

“You’ve got to sort this out,” she told him gravely. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I know it, and we need to start by getting this lawyer off our backs.”

She was shaking her head. “As far as I can see, I need him more now than ever. You stole that money, Jack, and you need to pay it back, or there are going to be some dire consequences.”

This time he didn’t answer, merely stared down at the letter as if he was no longer quite so sure of himself.

“Was she a part of it?” she asked. “Martha? Did she know what you were doing?”

Though he flinched, he sounded credible as he said, “She had nothing to do with it.”

“But she knows about it?”

“She does now.”

“And she still wants to be with you knowing that you’re a thief and a liar, a man who would put his wife, his whole family in jeopardy?”

“No one’s been trying to put you in jeopardy, for God’s sake. My intention is to transfer the company to your name so—if we can get it going—you’ll reap all the profits. I swear I’ve never intended to take anything for myself.”

“Because there’s nothing
to
take,” she pointed out shrilly. “You already have it, in your account.”

“Which is all but empty. Once again, you’re the one who’s been spending it, Jenna.”

“And you know damned well that I had no idea where it had come from. If you’d told me we were in such dire straits, I could have got a job.”

“Where? You’re not qualified to do anything around here even if there were jobs to be had, and there aren’t. All you can do is write, and you’re not even doing that anymore.”

Stung by the cruelty of that, she said, “I think you should go. I’ve got no more to say to you. The next time you hear from me will be through the lawyer.”

Thumping a hand on the countertop, he said, “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s not going to help you; he’ll only make things worse. We have to find a way of working this out together.”

“No!
You
have to find a way, because
you’re
the one who did it. I need what little money I have to keep my family fed and clothed, and for all I know my publisher will be asking for it back any day now anyway. What’s going to happen then, Jack? How are you going to provide for your children if what little I have is taken away?”

“If you’re really afraid of that,” he responded, “then you should transfer it to me. That way you won’t have it even if they do ask for it back.”

—

It had started again. Not as soon as Paige and Charlotte had returned to school; in fact, their first day back had almost allowed Paige to believe it might be over at last. She’d received no spiteful texts or emails, no snide remarks as she’d passed the Durmites in the corridors, nor had there been any cruel or bogus postings online. It was as though everything had gone back to normal. She’d even started to wonder if it would be OK to tell Miss Kendrick that she’d do
Under Milk Wood
after all, although she was still nervous about putting herself forward in case it goaded the Durmites into targeting her again.

In the end they hadn’t needed any help from her: they returned to it anyway, starting in the corridor outside the history room that morning when someone had deliberately tripped her up and made sure she’d hit the floor hard. She’d been careful not to show how much it hurt or let them know how foolish they’d made her feel; she’d simply picked herself up, collected her books, and carried on along the corridor.

Fortunately, she hadn’t been in the same lessons as them for the rest of the morning so nothing else had happened, and she felt reasonably safe here in the study center with Charlotte as they researched Alexander Fleming as part of their GCSE coursework. Everyone else was either in the canteen having lunch or milling about the grounds, but Mrs. Dyer had allowed them to come inside to carry on with their project.

However, Paige was finding it hard to focus. Her mind kept wandering off to places where she didn’t really want it to go at all, but she couldn’t seem to make it stop. Mostly it was focusing on her dad. Twice now he’d said he’d pick Josh and the twins up from school and take them to athletics or Cubs or Rainbows or wherever they were supposed to be going, and both times he’d got Grandma to do it instead. He wasn’t anything like the dad she used to know. He’d become selfish and mean, putting himself first in a way he never had before. He wasn’t even interested in her tourist video anymore. She knew that because he hadn’t mentioned it once since he’d gone. But that was OK. The last thing she wanted was it being singled out as something special; she’d only be ridiculed and punished for it if it were.

“Oh, wow! It’s from Liam,” Charlotte suddenly squealed as a text beeped into her phone. “Oh my God, oh my God,” she gasped after reading it. “Listen to this: ‘Hope you’re still free Saturday to come to game and party after at Oliver’s.’ ” She was grinning wickedly as she turned to Paige. “A party,” she repeated. “How amazing is that? I’ve got to get something to wear. Or I know—can I borrow that blue dress you got in New Look?”

“I haven’t worn it yet,” Paige complained.

“Oh right. Well, will you come into town with me to find something? We can go tomorrow, after school…Oh shit, I’m sorry,” she said with a gulp, abruptly realizing her mistake. “I wasn’t thinking. It’s at Cullum and Oliver’s, and you…I know, I’ll find out if I can invite a friend.”

“No, no,” Paige protested. “Honestly, don’t. I’d only feel embarrassed after all the texts and Facebook stuff.”

Charlotte appeared undecided.

Forcing a smile, Paige said, “It’s brilliant that Liam wants to take you.”

Charlotte’s eyes sparkled. “You know what it means, don’t you?” she whispered excitedly.

Paige frowned.

“It means we might do it.” She clapped her hands to her face. “Oh my God. Can you believe it? I might not be a virgin anymore after Saturday. That will be so amazing, just as long as no one starts calling me slag or slapper or anything like that.”

“It’s what they call me and I haven’t even done anything,” Paige reminded her.

“Yeah, but everyone knows it’s not true about you.”

“Do they?”

“Course they do. Hang on, I need to text him back.” She spoke the message aloud as she tapped it in.
Def still free would love to come. Is party an all-nighter?
“If it is,” she said to Paige, “can I say I’m staying at yours?”

“Sure,” Paige agreed miserably.

A minute later Charlotte received a reply.
Yes, all-nighter, but don’t bother with pajamas.

Charlotte was beaming as she turned to Paige. “Do you think I should get some condoms or leave it to him?” she whispered.

“I think you should take some, just in case,” Paige replied. “You don’t want to end up pregnant or with some horrible STD.”

Charlotte’s smile vanished. “He won’t have an STD,” she protested. “What made you even think it?”

Paige shrugged awkwardly. “I was just saying, that’s all. I mean, you don’t know who he’s been with before, and Mrs. Mars keeps banging on about it in PHSE. ‘You’ve got more chance of catching an STD than becoming pregnant, and it could ruin your chances of ever getting pregnant.’ ”