Chapter 121 Beyond Control:>>6

• Prologue. August 2011
• Jennifer Elizabeth Robertson stared out of the window, her grey eyes seemingly fixed on the far end of the garden where the tumbledown shed sagged against the fence, partially obscured by the tangle of brambles and hawthorn. Aside from herself the house had been empty for a year or so and it was quiet in the sunlit kitchen in which she stood, apart from the thin cries of children playing at the local school and the low grumble of earth moving equipment two streets down.
• Her mind was on the envelope lying on the kitchen table behind her. She recalled the many addresses scribbled on its face as people redirected it, and wondered how it had ever reached her. She remembered the body blow in her chest when she recognized who it was from, and how she had carefully propped it up against the sugar bowl whilst she went about her chores, delaying the moment when she would open it because she wasn't sure if the growl of excitement in her belly was greater or less than the sense of dread of what it might say. Twice she had gone to fling it in the bin but on each occasion she had stopped, aware that not knowing what was inside would be infinitely worse than knowing.