For the first few years of their marriage everything had been brilliant. Tom had started his own business and it had really taken off. They had moved to a larger flat, and then to this house. It had started to go wrong when she had left her job teaching in a primary school shortly before Max was born. She grew bored, then she’d suffered a long bout of post-natal depression. She had found it tough being at home all day with a baby, while Tom left early to go to London and arrived home late, usually too tired to talk. It would not be for ever, he had promised her. He just needed to put in the hours now, investing in their future.

Then Jessica had been born. And the same lonely struggle had repeated itself. Only Tom’s business had got harder. He worked even longer hours and talked to her less. She had started taking Max to school, made a new bunch of friends. All the other women seemed to have successful husbands, great clothes, nice cars, swanky homes, wonderful holidays.

This whole business with eBay that Tom just did not seem to understand had started because she was trying to help him. OK, there were some things that she did buy for herself, but mostly it was bargains she bought with the intention of selling again at a profit.

But she never seemed to get bids anywhere close to the prices she had paid.

There was another reason for her spending, both on eBay and on the QVC Shopping Channel, which she could never tell Tom: it masked the forty pounds a week out of her housekeeping that her vodka habit was costing her.

It was just a phase, a way of getting through the stress. She wasn’t an alcoholic, she told herself. She was just coping with a small crisis she was going through, her own way. As if to convince herself, she picked up the Argus and turned to the jobs section. That would be the best solution – find something part time. Make a contribution to the housekeeping, at least. And have some cash to buy the occasional drink – not that she really needed it.

Her mobile phone rang. It was out in the kitchen, where she had left it.

Cursing, she scrambled to her feet and walked, a little unsteadily, out of the room, glanced at the caller display, saw it was her best friend Lynn Cottesloe, and answered it.

‘Hi,’ she said, ‘how’re you?’ conscious that her voice was a little slurred.

‘I’m sitting in Orsino’s restaurant. Where are you?’

‘Oh, shit,’ Kellie said. ‘I’m – sho shorry.’

‘Are you OK?’

Shit, Kellie thought. Shit, shit, shit! She had totally forgotten they were meant to be having lunch today. She looked at her watch. It was 1.15 p.m.

‘Kellie, are you OK?’

‘OK? Me? Absolutely,’ she said breezily.

In the narrow room that doubled as the London office and showroom of BryceRight Promotional Merchandise Limited, Tom Bryce sat gloomily at his desk, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie at half-mast. He was shivering and thinking about putting his jacket back on. Bloody English weather. Yesterday it had been almost unbearably hot, today it was freezing.

The place gave off the right image; it was a smart address, and although not big, the room was elegantly proportioned with large windows, and had the original stucco work on the ceiling. There was just enough space for desks for the five of them, a waiting area which was also the display area, and a tiny kitchenette behind a partition at the far end.

The company name had been Kellie’s idea. A tad corny he had thought at the time, but as she had pointed out it was a name people would easily remember. BryceRight supplied business gifts and promotional clothing to companies and clubs. Its product lines ranged from overprinted pens, calculators, mouse pads and executive desk toys, to T-shirts, baseball caps, sportswear and trophies.

After graduating from business school in Brighton, Tom had worked for one of the largest companies in the field, the Motivation Business, and then, a decade ago, supported by Kellie, had mortgaged himself up to the hilt and set up on his own. He had operated from his den and the two spare bedrooms in their home until shortly after Max was born, when he had accumulated enough capital to take on the lease at this prestigious, if cramped, address just off Bond Street, as well as a warehouse close to Brick Lane in east London.

For the first six years the business boomed. He was a natural salesman, his customers liked him, everything was rosy. Then 9/11 had happened and for two days the phone had not rung. And it never really seemed to have rung with any consistency since.

He employed four salesmen, two of whom were based here in London, one in the north of England and one in Scotland. Additionally his secretary, Olivia, was in this office, as well as his admin clerk, Maggie, who was in charge of customer liaison and product sourcing. He employed another four people at the warehouse, an order chaser, a quality control supervisor and two dispatch clerks. And that was where he had a lot of problems – probably from not being there enough himself.

BryceRight had a blue-chip customer base, with some of the largest household names as clients. They supplied Weetabix, Range Rover, Legal and General Insurance, Nestlé, Grants of St James’s, as well as many much smaller clients.

For the first few years he used to really enjoy coming into work, and he’d even relished the post-9/11 challenge for a time, but more recently with the latest economic downturn and ever-increasing competition his turnover had plunged to the point where he was no longer making enough money to cover his overheads. He was losing customers to the competition, existing customers were placing smaller orders, and just recently there had been a spate of fuck-ups which had lost him even more business.

The in-tray on his desk was stacked with bills, some more than ninety days old. Yet again at the end of this month it was going to be a tough balancing act between the receivables and the debts to ensure the wage cheques did not bounce. And there would be, as always, the Kellie spending factor in that equation, also.

She was smiling out from the silver frame on his desk, along with Max and Jessica, all three of them responding to something the photographer had said. It was a great photograph, in flattering soft focus, giving them a slightly dreamlike quality. Staring at her fondly, he hoped to God there were going to be no more unwelcome surprises from her for a while.

How could he break it to her if they had to sell the house and downsize. And to what? A flat? How could he tell Max and Jessica that they might not have a garden any more?

He stared out of his second-floor window through the pouring rain at the windows across the road. Conduit Street was narrow, and the tall buildings made it feel like a gully. Even on a sunny day his office was in permanent shade.

Glancing down he could see the lunchtime stream of people, the sea of umbrellas and the line of cars, taxis and vans waiting to cross the lights at the intersection with Bond Street. In particular he watched a new maroon Bentley Continental. Ever since they had first come out he had hankered after one, but at this moment the gulf separating him from something so expensive seemed as big as the gulf that separated a snail on his garden fence from Mars.

He disconsolately munched his sandwich of tuna and sweetcorn on rye bread. He wasn’t crazy about the combination of tuna and sweetcorn, and he disliked the sharp caraway seeds in rye, but this morning he had woken up more determined than he had been in a long while to eat more healthily – and this stuff was supposed to be low fat, low everything. He would have preferred his usual bacon and egg, or cheddar and pickle any day. It was Kellie, in bed last night playfully prodding his stomach and calling him ‘Tubs’, that had been the final straw.