'Monica, listen,' Jimmy said quietly. 'That inspector left me in an interview room, alone, to sweat for three hours. He was hoping that I'd come out having decided to play ball. But that wasn't what I ended up thinking.'

'No?' Monica asked angrily.

'No. What I ended up thinking was that me, sitting there in that police station, was a consequence. A consequence of something that I had done. Something that we had done. We invested in Webb Street because we wanted to make millions of pounds in profit. That's all. That is the end of the story. Rupert may have suggested the scheme but I did it and I did it because I wanted to be richer. The same reason I took Rupert's tip on Caledonian Granite. I wanted to get richer. I didn't need any more money, but I wanted to get richer. I have to face that fact. It's my responsibility.'

'Your responsibility is your family, your children!'

'Mon, calm down,' said Jimmy, 'you'll wake them up.'

'Good! Perhaps they should hear that their dad would rather leave them and go to prison than tell the truth to the police about some complete arsehole who's royally done him over, just because he used to be at university with him and you both shoved radishes up your bums on graduation night!'

Jimmy couldn't help but smile at this, but Monica wasn't smiling. He tried to hug her, but she wasn't having that either.

'Mon,' Jimmy said gently, 'this isn't about Rupert. It's about me. Don't you see that? About everything I've done and where it's brought me to. For the first time in my life I'm coming to understand that actions have consequences. In fact it seems to me that this whole bloody crisis is based on people thinking they could get rich without there being any consequences. That the rules didn't apply to them. That personal responsibility was something for other people. That what really mattered was what you could get away with. And that was all that mattered. If you could get away with it, it was OK. Nobody followed their conscience, they just followed the profit. It's time I did follow my conscience. If I can get out of this I promise you I will, but not by trying to pretend that it's somebody else's fault other than my own.'

Monica tried to reply, but stopped. Then she tried again, but once more could not frame an adequate response. He'd flummoxed her.

'God,' she said eventually, 'you sound like your bloody dad.'

Jimmy smiled.

'Is that a good or a bad thing?'

'Good . . . probably,' she replied, suddenly resigned and quiet, 'as long as you don't buy a cardigan and start collecting trains.'

'I have to learn something from all this,' Jimmy said, 'otherwise what's the point? And what I've learned is that if I turn Rupert in to avoid facing the consequences of what I did then I'm a bigger shit than he ever was. I can't help it, Monica, but that's the way I am. There isn't much left that I have to be proud of, but at least I can take responsibility for my own actions. Like I say, I do still have some pride. That's probably all I have got.'

'You've got us,' Monica said almost in a whisper.

'Yes. And I can still look you in the eye. If I had to stand up in court and turn evidence against Rupert to save my own skin, I couldn't even do that.'

Monica shrugged.

'Well, I think you're wrong. Rupert deserves to go down for everything he's done. They should have put him away for destroying your dad's bank. You don't deserve prison. You're just a bloody idiot.'

'Even an idiot can learn a lesson.'

There was silence. For perhaps the first time in their whole marriage a distance had developed between them. Once more Jimmy crossed the room and tried to hug her. This time she tried to hug him back, but her heart wasn't in it.

'It'll be all right, Mon,' Jimmy whispered, 'just you wait.'

'How? How will it be all right?' Monica asked.

'I'll make it all right. Just you see if I don't.'

'Yes. Because you're so good at that, aren't you, Jim.'

She said it with some bitterness, but again Jimmy smiled. She had a point.

'I'm going to bed,' Monica said.

But then she remembered that she hadn't yet checked for notes in Toby's school bag.

'Oh God,' she said.

Sure enough, there it was. What's more, it was a note that somehow she had managed to miss for two days and which related to the following morning.

Dear Parent or Guardian As you know, our topic this term is the Great Age of Exploration. Could you please send your child into school on Wednesday dressed as an Elizabethan.

Monica wanted to scream. She was exhausted, penniless, about to be made homeless, her husband was being done for insider trading and now she was going to have to construct an Elizabethan ruff out of Sellotape and kitchen paper.

Life went on.

'Oh God,' she repeated, starting to look for a pair of scissors. 'You go to bed.'

'Can I help? Make him a sword or something?'

'I think you've done enough for today.'

The makeshift costume took her an hour.

After which, while once more on her way to bed, Monica remembered that she hadn't washed Toby's sports kit either.

Two phone calls The following morning Jimmy left for Webb Street before the children had woken up. It was now more urgent than ever to get the renovations done as quickly as possible.

'I've got to get you sorted out,' he told Monica. 'The sooner we start living there, the sooner we can claim squatters' rights. I swear I am not going to leave you and the children in a Bed and Breakfast . . . if I have to go away.'

Then he mounted his bike, slung his bag of tools over the handlebars and headed off. His low point of the previous evening seemed to have passed.

'It'll be all right. I promise you I'll make it all right,' he shouted over his shoulder and was gone.

Shortly after he'd left, Rupert phoned.

'Where's Jimmy, Monica?' he asked with scarcely a word of greeting.

'He's on his way to Webb Street,' she replied coldly. 'You remember Webb Street? You told us it was going to make us millions and now your old bank's got it and we're about to be evicted from our home because we mortgaged it chasing your stupid scheme.'

Rupert ignored the challenge. He was clearly in no mood to deal with embittered ex-friends.

'Can you give me his mobile number?' he asked.

'No. I'm the only one who has it and we only use it for emergencies. We're counting the pennies, Rupert, don't you remember? We only have state benefits to live on, not a state-funded mega pension like you.'

'This is an emergency,' Rupert snapped. 'Give me the number.'

'No. If you want to talk to him, go to Webb Street. He's at Number 23.'

'What did he tell the police, Monica?'

'He didn't tell them anything, Rupert,' Monica said angrily before adding, 'yet'.

'What do you fucking mean, "yet"?'

'I mean that he's being his usual pig-headed decent self but I'm going to nag him till he sees sense, that's what. I've told him to turn you in. The police have offered to keep him out of jail if he tells them who tipped him off about the Caledonian Granite shares. At the moment he's not talking, but if I have my way he's going to get his memory back very soon.'

'Is that so?' Rupert's voice was hard and cold.

'Yes, it is.'

'Goodbye, Monica,' Rupert said and hung up.

Monica put down the phone. She had plenty of shit to handle without bothering to think about another load.

Life, as John Lennon said, is what happens when you're making other plans.

It was a school morning and Toby couldn't find any socks.

Where were all the socks? She hated socks. Passionately. And she had to make him sandwiches because he hated the school dinner that day, which was a shame because they got free school dinners.

She found two dirty socks in the laundry basket which passed the sniff test, gave them to Toby and started to dress Cressie and Lillie. Meanwhile she was also trying to help Toby with his maths homework while he ate his cornflakes, except there was only dust left in the box so she had to make him toast. Then she remembered about it being gym day so she packed the sports kit which she had washed late the previous night and hung over a cold radiator but which was nearly dry, except that there were no plimsolls because Toby had left them at school. Monica did not relish the thought of rummaging through the school's pile of left-behind gym kit looking for his runners but she knew that it would have to be faced. She looked at herself in the mirror and wondered if she could really go out without washing her hair and decided that she could, but she'd have to wear a hat.

Toby tried on the paper ruff that Monica had made and said that he'd rather poo a red-hot cannon ball than wear it and Monica said that was fine by her because it had only taken her an hour in the middle of the bloody night to make.

'Can I just wear my Kaiser Chiefs T-shirt?' Toby asked.

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Because it's not Elizabethan.'

'Yes it is,' Toby said triumphantly. 'What do you think the Queen's name is?'

Monica had to stop and think for a second on that one, but when she got it she couldn't help but admire her son's logic.

'It's Elizabeth-the-Secondian,' said Toby triumphantly.

'All right,' Monica conceded. 'If you think you can get away with it, wear it.'

'Yes!' said Toby, punching the air and looking just like Jimmy.

Eventually they all set off for school, where Monica found Toby's gym shoes and then did some reading with the younger ones. Or at least she read with some of the younger ones and others she merely minded while they bounced from wall to wall, but at least it gave the teacher a chance to teach those kids who weren't hovering three feet from the floor on sugar highs. It was generally agreed among the parents and teachers that this year's Receptions and Year Ones were buggers.

Then, around mid-morning, the school secretary stuck her head round the door and said that there was an important phone call for Monica on hold in the school office. That it was the police.

It turned out to be the policeman who had come to interview Jimmy the day before. He wanted to know if Jimmy owned a Rolex watch.

'I think I saw one on his wrist, Mrs Corby, but I need confirmation.'

'Well,' Monica said, perplexed, 'it was actually a fake, but a pretty good one.'

'I see. Did he also own a ring with a skull motif?'

'Yes he did. It was his wedding ring. Can you tell me why you need to know, please?'

There was a silence over the phone. A silence which sent a chill to Monica's very core.

'Is Jimmy in any more trouble?' she asked, trying to stop her voice from shaking. 'Has anything happened?'

'I would rather not say at present, Mrs Corby,' Beaumont answered. 'I will be in touch shortly.'

The line went dead and Monica replaced the receiver with a trembling hand. Suddenly the very last words Jimmy had said to her as he cycled off that morning came into her head.

'It'll be all right,' he had said. 'I promise you I'll make it all right.'

What had he done? What had he done?

Sifting through the embers It was one of the top-end squatters who had seen the flames first. She'd been practising her juggling in the street and smelt smoke. But even though the alarm was raised very quickly, it still hadn't been quick enough. Number 23 was gutted.

As the chief assistant fire officer later concluded in his incident report, 'The fire took hold with extraordinary speed and ferocity. Every floor was ablaze before our engines arrived and there was no possibility of getting anywhere near the building, let alone entering it.'

It had been very distressing for the firemen and women on the scene. The juggler told them that on most days a man called Jimmy was in the house all day painting and decorating and that it was definitely his bike that could be seen chained to the step railing and slowly succumbing to the flames.

Time and time again the brave fire officers had tried to penetrate the dense smoke and heat, and time and time again they failed. Soon it became apparent to even the most tenacious and determined among them that any sacrifice would be pointless, as by now anyone inside that inferno would long since have been consumed by it.

Eventually the fire brigade managed to put the fire out. After cooling the wreckage a little with their hoses, they were able to make a preliminary foray into what was left of the house. Very quickly they located what they had prayed they would not find. Charred human remains. A body, burnt to a crisp, scarcely anything left of it but the half-incinerated skeleton. Not a shred of clothing, of course. But on the corpse's wrist could be seen the half-melted remains of what had clearly been a Rolex watch, and on its wedding finger a gold ring with a silver skull on it.

It was shortly after this discovery that Inspector Beaumont arrived on the scene. He was looking for Jimmy to try once more to persuade him to cooperate with the crown in pursuing Rupert.

Having learned from the chief fire officer of the discovery of the corpse and the jewellery found on it and having spoken to Monica to confirm the ownership of that jewellery, Beaumont was forced to the depressing conclusion that Jimmy Corby was beyond cooperating with anyone.

'Suicide,' a voice at Beaumont's shoulder said. 'Suicide, pure and simple.'

Beaumont turned round and found himself shaking the hand of a man who introduced himself as Andrew Tanner.

'Of Wigan and Wigan Insurance,' Tanner explained. 'We insure these buildings.'

'You've moved quickly, Mr Tanner,' Beaumont said.

'We have excellent connections in the Fire Service, Inspector, and as chief loss adjuster I attempt to personally attend any potential claim that I deem potentially suspicious. And to do so as soon as possible.'

'Suspicious?'

'This house was part of a failed property development, Inspector, a misguided financial speculation. However, when the property was insured the market was booming and the valuation was much higher than it would be today. This house is therefore worth considerably more burnt to the ground that it was when it was standing.'

'You suspect arson?'

'When negative equity which is heavily over-insured goes up in flames, Inspector, I always suspect arson. However, having arrived to find that there was a body in the building and having discovered that the former owner had been working on it, I've changed my theory.'