When she got back to London, things moved more slowly than she expected. Furniture removal had to be arranged, the garage at Sarah's mother's tiny house in Yorkshire was to be its destination to begin with.

The Bank had to be informed that the property was to be given up. Schools had to be told her children were leaving. Fortunately the long summer holiday was imminent so schools for the autumn were not a priority yet.

Tantrums from the children had to be endured and coped with.

"Why do we have to move, mummy. We don't want to move. What about my friends. What about the plans for my birthday party next month."

Sarah had placed them both on the table in the living room. With legs dangling and socks around their ankles, it immobilised them briefly while she conveyed the facts of the situation to them.

David stood gazing out of the window. She could see there were tears in his eyes. He had hardly spoken to her in three days and they had slept on separate sides of the bed. She had kept up the pretence of not knowing about his affair and had said nothing about hers. As far as he was concerned she had spent the weekend at her mothers making arrangements but there was an iciness in the air. Also, she had to explain the situation about the house to the children.

"Mummy and Daddy both love you lots. We both would do anything in our power for you to make you happy and keep you safe. We have both worked and worked to make things good for you. But there are things in life over which we have no control."

"There are people running our country who have made dreadful mistakes and many people like us are suffering as a result. There is nothing we can do to avoid this. It's a fact of life. We have to make the best of it. It's hard for mummy and daddy as well as yourselves."

"But right now, more than anything else, I need for you to be grown up. Even if you don't understand what's going on, we need your support and help like we've never needed it before. Then together we'll manage to pull through this."

She had expected it to be more difficult. She expected to have to bear the brunt of heavy recrimination. There were inevitably some tears. There was a lot of sadness. But they moved to the couch once she had said her bit and had a family cuddle and it was all easier than she expected.

Perhaps their acceptance was best summed up by Tommy.

"The same thing happened to my friend Daniel last week. They are having to move house too. Their mummy and daddy are splitting up and they've got nowhere to go to."

Sarah swallowed back the tears that threatened to engulf her again.

"Why not look at it as a special treat. You can have another lovely holiday up with Granny in Yorkshire and you'll be able to play cricket on her lawn with Daddy."

"Ooh yes please mummy", came the chorused response.

As she again wrapped her arms around her children, Sarah was already making plans. Earlier that day she had used the PC in the spare bedroom to backup the virus killing disk the youth had given her. Then she had tried to use the disk to clean her portable of its viruses. But it contained no virus killing program at all and all files on her portable were now destroyed.

If she had not made the backup copy of the disk, it would have been deleted too and she would never have seen the Email on it. The fact that the message was encrypted made her think it must be important.

Tim Cruikshank would be interested in that.

A cold fury burned inside her at the arrogance and duplicity of the gangly teenager. Was it possible that Peter could really be connected to him? It seemed so unlikely yet the effect of their actions was to the same end. How did Peter benefit? There was also still the matter of her lost investment. The ferret faced man had talked as if the youth had survived the fall. She was a little relieved but had no illusions that he would come after her.

The retribution she had tried to exact on Peter had failed disastrously. In his arrogance, Peter had swallowed her bait whole and without harm. Now he was offering use of his new house to keep her in the game. Everything was confused but Sarah knew deep down that somehow the account would be squared.



The opportunity came sooner than she expected when Tim Cruikshank contacted her later that afternoon. He was very interested in what she had to say and immediately agreed to make arrangements to decode the message.

To Sarah, it held out the hope of retribution on Terry and his accomplices. The thought was sweet. If Tim Cruikshank was willing to pay for her time while she achieved that then all the better.

David would go with the children to Yorkshire shortly just before the court order became effective. In the mean time, Tim Cruikshank had given her a job to do. What had she to lose? It was a leap into the unknown that normally she would have avoided or taken more care over…. in more normal times.