Prologue

April
There is before and after, like one of those slimming adverts you see in magazines and newspapers. Only my before and after had nothing to do with diet, unless you counted prison food. Before prison I had been confident and successful. I had a family and a career. I had friends. And after? Well, here I am standing outside Camp Hill on the Isle of Wight getting high on the smell of diesel and petrol fumes, hesitant, with a prison pallor and a prison stoop.

For forty-two months, one week and two days I had dreamt of this moment. Now that it had arrived I felt a flutter of panic that almost had me scurrying back to the gates of Camp Hill pleading to be allowed back in. Goodness knows what lifers must feel!

‘Hey, Alex! Over here.’

I pulled myself together and headed towards the black Mercedes. Remember who you once were I said to myself. But that Alex Albury had vanished one September when, in the early hours of the morning, the police had burst into my home on the Hamble and had arrested me for something I hadn’t done.

I climbed into the waiting car and glanced at my defence lawyer. Miles gave me a brief nod before pulling out into the traffic. We didn’t speak. As the prison receded my breathing became easier. My pulse settled down and I felt the tension drain from my body. As we climbed Brading Down, the sparkling blue of the Solent in the distance stole the breath from my body.

It was then that I knew no matter what the cost I would find James Andover. I would ask him why he had framed me. And then I would destroy him as he had destroyed me.