She closed her eyes. Charlie was quite capable of carrying out his threats. This man was capable of anything.

Why had she ever borrowed money from him?

Because she’d been desperate, that was why. It had been right at the end of Matty’s illness. She’d sold everything, but there was this treatment… There’d been a chance. It was slim, she’d known, but she’d do anything.

She’d been sobbing, late at night, in the back room of the café. She’d been working four hours a day to pay her rent. The rest of the time she’d spent with Matty. Cathy had found her there, and Charlie came in and found them both.

He’d loan her the money, he said, and the offer was so extraordinary both women had been rendered almost speechless.

Jenny could repay it over five years, he’d told them, by working for half wages at the café. Only he needed security. ‘In case you decide to do a runner.’

‘She’d never do a runner,’ Cathy had said, incensed. ‘When Matty’s well she’ll settle down and live happily ever after.’

‘I don’t believe in happy ever after,’ Charlie had said. ‘I need security.’

‘I’ll pledge my apartment that she’ll repay you,’ Cathy had said hotly. ‘I trust her, even if you don’t.’

What a disaster. They’d been so emotional they hadn’t thought it through. All Jenny had wanted was to get back to the hospital, to get back to Matty, and she didn’t care how. Cathy’s generosity was all she could see.

So she’d hugged her and accepted and didn’t see the ties. Only ties there were. Matty died a month later and she was faced with five years bonded servitude.

Cathy’s apartment had been left to her by her mother. It was pretty and neat and looked out over the harbour. Cathy was an artist. She lived hand to mouth and her apartment was all she had.