CHAPTER ONE

      MERREN tried to look on the bright side—or even find a bright side. By nature she was a cheerful person, but just lately there had been little to cheer about.

      Looking on the bright side, however, she had the money in her bag which would take the look of strain from the face of Robert, her brother. It had been extremely disappointing that the sale of her mother’s sapphire and diamond ring hadn’t fetched anywhere near its insurance valuation. But the two thousand pounds she had been forced to accept was just enough to keep the bailiffs from Robert’s door. Though since six weeks ago Robert, his wife and their three children had moved into the house she already lived in, it was her door too.

      Not that he and his family didn’t have a right to live there as well, Merren reminded herself as, having delivered an envelope in the area, she made her way past elegant and expensive houses en route to public transport.

      It had to be today that Robert had wanted to borrow her car to go for a job interview. Though, she acknowledged, in the last six weeks it had become more like the family’s car, rather than belonging exclusively to her. But Robert’s need was greater than hers, and if he was successful at his interview, a company car, as in his old job, went with the territory.

      Just as it had to be today that Robert’s need of a car was greater than her own, it had to be today that her boss, Dennis Chapman, ‘up to his eyes in it’, to use his expression, had asked if she’d mind dropping some urgent documents off to one of his business associates on her way home. She had done so once before, and Dennis had obviously assumed she’d had her car outside today.

      Merren’s thoughts went back to her brother as she reflected on the mess he was in. If only he’d told someone a year ago that he’d been made redundant they might, collectively, have been able to find some way out of his problems. But he hadn’t told anyone—not even his wife!

      True, Carol, a terminal worrier at the best of times, had been four months pregnant with their third child then. But even so, though Robert had thought he’d get another job straight away, Merren felt sure that, had Carol known, she would have pulled with him rather than against him, as was happening now.

      A year ago they could have…Merren’s breath caught, the sadness she was having to come to terms with coming over her. A year ago her mother had been alive. A year ago she and her mother had lived happily together in the house Merren’s father still owned. Ten months ago her mother had been out walking when a car coming round a sharp bend had gone out of control. It…

      Merren turned her thoughts away from the shock and horror of that devastating time after her mother’s death. She had valued Robert’s support in the background then. But, aside from her love for her brother, Merren saw it as only right and natural that now, in his time of need, she should support him.

      Their father lived in Cornwall, but, since he hadn’t stirred himself to attend his estranged wife’s funeral, they hardly expected any help from him in this financial crisis. Although before Robert had told Carol that their small savings were gone, that he hadn’t been paying the mortgage and that they were soon to be homeless, he had written a number of times to his father for help—so far, he had received no reply.

      Merren was deep in thought, and was passing one of the tall, imposing houses, when a young man in his early twenties came galloping out down the steps, a travel bag in his hand, and only just avoided cannoning into her.

      ‘Sorry!’ he called, his eyes appreciative of her face and figure.

      He was soon from her mind and Merren walked on. She must get home. She didn’t think Robert had told Carol that she was going to try to sell their mother’s—and, before her, their grandmother’s—ring. But he would be waiting. She must get home. She must…

      All thought suddenly ceased when what happened next happened so fast she could hardly believe it was happening at all. One moment she was stepping purposefully out on the hard pavement; the following she was being pushed violently from behind—and the pavement was coming up to meet her.

      Even while it was dawning on her that she was being mugged, three adrenalin-activated youths were pushing and shoving and hitting and generally making short work of her grim determination to hang on to her shoulder bag at all costs, and were escaping pell-mell down the road with it.

      Feeling stunned and winded, it was the violence of the assault that shocked her. She had never ever been hit before and she just sat there dishevelled and decidedly crumpled for ageless seconds, dazed, sickened, a cross between tears and fury.

      She did not cry, and there was no one there on whom she could vent her anger. How could she have been hit, pushed, knocked over in this salubrious area? Why not? What better place for a mugging than this well-to-do district? What better place for rich pickings.

      ‘Oh,