He sighed. ‘Can’t you read? There’s a notice ten feet high at the entrance.’ Then, since she was still frowning, he said, very slowly, ‘You have to pay before you leave. Over there.’ She looked around, saw a machine, then, as the hooting became more insistent, ‘In your own time,’ he added sarcastically.

And Bah! Humbug…to you, she thought as she grabbed her bag from the car and sprinted to the nearest machine, read the instructions, fed in the ticket and then the amount indicated with shaking fingers.

She returned to the car, calling, ‘Sorry, sorry…’ to the people she’d held up before flinging herself back into the car and finally escaping.

Moments later, she was just one of thousands of drivers battling through traffic swollen by Christmas shoppers and visitors who’d come up to town to see the lights.

Anonymous, invisible, she removed the unnecessary spectacles, dropping them on the passenger seat, then headed west out of London.

She made good time but the pale blue winter sky was tinged with pink, the trees black against the horizon as she reached the junction for Maybridge. A pretty town with excellent shops, a popular riverside area, it was not too big, not too small. As good a place as any to begin her adventure and she headed for the ring road and the anonymous motel she’d found on the Internet.

Somewhere to spend the night and decide what she was going to do with her brief moment of freedom.

George Saxon’s jaw was rigid as he kept his silence.

‘No one else can do it,’ his father insisted.

A nurse appeared, checked the drip. ‘I need to make Mr Saxon comfortable,’ she said. Then, with a pointed look at him, ‘Why don’t you take your mother home? She’s been here all day.’

‘No, I’ll stay.’ She took his father’s hand, squeezed it. ‘I’ll be back in a little while.’

His father ignored her, instead grabbing his wrist as he made a move.

‘Tell me you’ll do it!’