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our home. I was leaving behind my massive collection of books, some of
which were first editions. I was the cook in the relationship and I’d got so
many gadgets that I used on a daily basis that I was just leaving behind. I
took a deep breath, suddenly feeling a small portion of what people must feel
when their belongings were taken out by fire or flood. I took the key off my
key ring and left it on the island, walked out to join Brooke in the hall, and
closed the door. She was holding the lift door open for me and gave me a
reassuring smile as I stepped in and she pressed for the lobby. I tucked into
the corner and allowed myself to let out a few tears as I looked down at the
perforated steel tiled floor as it started its descent, then shuddered and
opened.
    ‘Ellie, nice to see you,’ came a voice and I
groaned inwardly. It was Alec, one of Zac’s friends from his office, who lived
a couple of floors down. It was banker and stockbroker central in this
building. I hoped Zac hadn’t rung him and asked him to stop me leaving. I
looked up at him with a half-smile.
    ‘Hi, Alec.’
    ‘You off on holiday?’ he asked seemingly surprised
as he looked at the cases.
    ‘Yeah, sort of,’ I nodded as I wiped away the
tears clinging to my lashes.
    ‘O shit, you found out,’ he groaned. ‘You’re
leaving.’
    ‘You knew all about it?’ I asked, unsure why I
sounded surprised, after all I rang my best friend the minute it went tits up,
why wouldn’t Zac confide in his friend the problems we were having?
    ‘Well yeah, he was hoping to have found another
job before you found out, so you’d never need to know.’
    ‘Found another job?’ I asked, confused.
    ‘Well it’s been six months since he was fired, we
figured he’d have picked himself up and got something else by now.’
    ‘He was fired six months ago?’ I uttered, stunned.
Brooke just shook her head and rolled her eyes.
    ‘Shit Ellie, I thought you knew, I mean I bumped
into him on Saturday morning in the lobby and he said you’d had an argument, I
just assumed …’ Alec visibly grimaced. ‘ Awkward .’
    ‘Yeah, you could say that,’ I sighed. Who the
hell had I been living with? Six months unemployed and he’d been going out
every morning suited and booted with his briefcase and coming home late every
night, as was usual, telling me about how he’d made clients so happy with the
killings he’d started making on the markets as they were picking up. I suddenly
felt hollow inside. Could I have been a bigger fool? The lift pinged
again and opened at the lobby.
    ‘Sorry Ellie, see you around,’ Alec gave me a pity
smile and strode off.
    ‘Wow, what a tangled web our Zac has gotten
himself into,’ Brooke observed with a look of sympathy at me. I hated this, I
didn’t want to be the victim that everyone felt sorry for.
    ‘Then I’m actually a very lucky girl to have found
out when I did, aren’t I?’ I replied, putting on my bravest front.
    ‘That’s my girl,’ Brooke smiled. ‘Let’s hoof it.’
    ‘Afternoon, Miss Baxter.’ Harry tipped his cap at
me and I gave him a genuine smile, he’d always been so polite with me.
    ‘Afternoon, Harry.’ I almost wished I had time to
go and apologise for leaving without talking to him, to be able to thank him
for all the doors he’d opened, lifts he’d halted, umbrellas he’d loaned me, but
I didn’t have time if I wanted to avoid a confrontation with Zac. We hurried
across the road and up towards my car and I looked at Brooke, my eyes wide in
panic, as I heard a familiar throttled roar.
    ‘Shit, it’s his Porsche, isn’t it? Move faster,’
she ordered. We started running, dragging the two cases we needed behind us
over the cobbles. I looked over my shoulder and saw his car screech to a stop
outside the main entrance. We ran around the corner and I took one last look at
him running into the building before quickly opening my car.
    ‘We don’t have long, Harry will tell him we just
left on