The houses stand still, like a row of dollhouses. Frost covers the pavement and road like glitter. The moon above shines a spotlight on the house. It resembles a stage set. She waits for a sign, something to tell her she is doing the right thing. She hears loud cawing and spots a crow on the branch of the birch tree by the gate. She scans the garden for a cat lurking in the shadows, but there is nothing.

Behind her, she can hear the faint sound of snoring from the bed. Slowly, she creeps across the floor, and the cold of the tiles chills her feet. She takes his mobile from the bedside table, then slowly pulls the door open and squeezes through the gap. Downstairs, the living room is in darkness, apart from the eerie glow of the lamppost through the gaps in the shutters.

She doesn’t switch on the light as she opens the chest and removes the blankets stuffed on top. Inside is a woolly jumper and a small bag with some clothes she stashed away that morning. She quickly changes out of her white nightdress, shivering in the cold as she fumbles for her long-sleeve top. She pulls on the jeans, wincing at the pain in her side, as she secures the button. She pulls out the small rucksack and checks inside: a T-shirt, underwear, deodorant, and 100 euros in cash that she has managed to skim off the weekly shop the past six months. It’s hidden inside a packet of sanitary towels that she carefully sealed with glue so that it looks unopened.

She freezes when she hears a high-pitched meow outside. Her heart pounds in her chest. Cats fighting. The mother must be protecting her kittens. Last week she spotted them in the bushes in her neighbour’s garden. She pauses, listening for any sign he’s awake. If he wakes now, she’ll have to make a run for it. Terror courses through her as she recalls two nights ago. The silent treatment when he came home, the knot in her stomach tightening as she tried to figure out what she had done to upset him. Evenings were the worst. That’s when she was trapped for the night.

She tiptoes to the desk and presses the button on the laptop. When the password option comes up, she hovers over the keyboard, her hand trembling. It takes her a couple of attempts to enter the same password, even though she has seen him enter it several times. She closes her eyes and silently prays he hasn’t updated it in the last two days. Bingo, the screen opens. She glances at the little clock at the bottom of the screen, 3 a.m. He took longer to fall asleep than she’d hoped. She unlocks the drawer with the small key he normally keeps in his wallet. She pulls it open slowly and looks underneath the piles of papers until she finds the little brown notebook where he keeps his online banking logins and quickly types the password, her fingers fumbling over the keys. She scans the page on the left-hand side until she sees ‘make a transfer’. She clicks. Pulls a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and pulls out the account details from the bank account she’d set up in her name two months ago.

For the transfer amount, she types in 1,000. The account has over 10,000. She could take more, but she doesn’t want the bank calling him as soon as they open. His phone flashes on the desk with a preview of the verification code.

‘XBC6DDF.’

She quickly types it in and waits, her heart hammering in her chest.

Transaction complete.

She shuts down the laptop and switches off the internet so that everything is just as he left it the night before. The key, though, she can’t risk putting that back upstairs. No, instead she locks the drawer and tucks the key in her pocket.

She puts on her coat, her fingers fumbling over the buttons. Then she pulls on a woolly hat to cover her blonde hair and grabs the bag. Slowly, she moves the chain and the two bolt locks, turns the key and opens the door. She closes it with a click behind her.

She’s in the dark communal hall. Someone has left a porch light on the floor below. She grips the banister, her legs feel like jelly. She stumbles – instinct makes her hand shoot to her stomach. She catches herself just in time as she makes her way down the first flight of stairs. There is a loud ringing in her ears, and a trickle of sweat runs down her spine. She moves fast down the two staircases, pulls open the door behind her, and feels the cold rush at her face. Pulling her coat tighter around her, she starts walking. There are no buses at this time, but she’s memorised the bus route. It should take her just over an hour on foot to get to the Comasina metro stop that will take her to Milano Centrale.

Her legs move as if they are separate from her. Sometimes her body senses the threat before her mind. A car slows beside her, and she keeps her head down, blood pounding in her ears. Has he found her already? It speeds past and turns left.

He’ll be awake in a few hours. When he discovers she’s gone, he’ll put the word out to his contacts in the Carabinieri. Her breathing is irregular, the panic rising in her as she breaks into a run.

As soon as she gets to Rome, she’ll find a hostel. Somewhere where they take cash. She wishes she could have gone home to Glasgow. But that would be the first place he would look. When you live in fear for four years, you learn to adapt. She can’t fail this time. Last time he found her. She’d gone to her mum’s house in Partick. He turned up two days later with bloodshot eyes, a bunch of flowers and told her he couldn’t live without her. Begged her not to leave their marriage. He slept on the sofa for five days. Made breakfast for her and mum in the morning. In the evening, he helped with the dishes – things he never did at home. On the sofa, he held her hand, told her he would change and that she was everything to him. She’d flown back to Italy with him the following week.

She slows to a walk to catch her breath and passes apartment blocks, the shutters down, everyone safe inside. She thinks of her bed – never safe. She remembers moving in with him after six months and getting the keys from his mother. He carried her over the doorway. Things were nice, perfect even. Then she fell pregnant, her attention shifted to the life growing in her womb, making it a home. She squeezes her eyes tight, uses the palm of her hand to wipe away the memory. But it’s no use. The force of his hand on her back, like a hot iron, as he pushed her down the stairs. She lay there, a throbbing pain in her side, wet liquid seeping into her pants. He told the paramedic she had fallen.

She sees a shape move out from below a bush. A stray dog. She stops on the pavement. It turns its head, eyes golden flames, daring her to come closer. The sound of a car breaks its stare, and it slinks away into the shadows, behind another apartment block.

The metro glows in the distance. She glances behind her before making her way downstairs. There is a man, huddled in the doorway with a grubby red sleeping bag around him. The shop is closed, so she puts some coins in the machine, grabs her tickets and makes her way through the turnstiles to the deserted platform. Her eyes dart to the screen – three minutes before the next train. What if he’s already woken up and is driving around looking for her? She calculates how long it would take him to drive here – fifteen minutes at most. She moves to the top of the platform and huddles in the shadows. A man with a shaved head paces the platform opposite. She takes a deep inhale and tries to steady her breathing. Where is the train? Please come, please come. In the tunnel, she can see the glare of an orange light. The train, her knight, is ready to carry her away. She collapses onto a seat in the empty carriage and leans her head against the window.

‘Prossima fermata Milano Centrale,’ the tannoy announces.

As the doors open, her eyes dart up the platform – she’s expecting him. He always told her he knew what she was thinking. That nobody would really know her the way he did. She pushes that thought away and walks briskly to the escalator, which brings her outside the imposing station, a symbol of the Mussolini regime. All around the top of the marble building are statues of horses, eagles, and bulls.

If he catches her, she’ll never be free again. He’s like a rip tide, dragging her under. Each time she tries to fight, it comes at her harder and stronger. She glances at the departure screen. The first train to Rome leaves in an hour. She tucks her hair inside her hat and makes her way to the ticket office, where a well-built man with brown hair is looking at his phone.

‘Buongiorno,’ he says, glancing at her.

‘Buongiorno. Vorrei un biglietto per Roma.’

‘Ritorno?’

‘Non, singolo.’

‘Trentotto euro.’

He watches her as she fumbles in her pocket for the two crumpled twenty euro notes and slides them across the counter. His eyes linger on her left hand, the diamond, like a siren, warning him she is already owned. She snatches the ticket and walks to the far end of the station. Her hands are shaking.

She orders a Grappa and an espresso and downs them one after the other at the bar. After, she finds a spot where she can watch people coming in and keeps an eye on her platform. Her eyes dart from the entrance to the arrivals screen. Her head is pounding, the caffeine rush has hit her hard, making her even more jittery and on edge.

Platform 18

She moves from the shadows of the shop doorway, the ticket clutched tight in her fist. At the barrier, she scans her ticket. A red light flashes, but the barrier doesn’t open. She looks behind her, sweat running down her back. She tries it again. The red light continues to flash. This station is not going to let her pass. A prisoner. Has he told them to block her ticket? A man approaches, and she opens her mouth to scream, but then she notices the navy uniform of the ticket conductor. He checks her ticket, slides a key into the side of the barrier, and it opens. She staggers through.

The train is waiting, the warm glow of light inside, a safe place. She presses the button at carriage C and walks up the aisle to locate her seat. It’s at the back, a window seat. She scans outside the platform for his familiar shape. The navy coat, the dark hair with the close-shaven beard that shows his strong jawline. How that jaw would tense, the silence that penetrated the apartment when he arrived home from work. She would scrub the kitchen, the bathroom – anything to hide from that glare.

A movement in the carriage catches her eye. A woman in her late forties with a small cabin bag settles into the seat in front of her. More people are boarding the train. She feels like prey, waiting to be shot. She must keep moving. She scans the carriage for the toilet sign – an arrow points to the next carriage. She grabs her bag and stumbles up the aisle. The small door is on her left, with a green vacant sign. She pushes open the door and closes it behind her, sliding the latch. There is a stench of urine. She closes the toilet lid and sits down, hands covering her face as she counts the seconds.

Outside, she hears the shrill of a whistle and feels the rumble of the engine as the train starts to move. Her body sags, and she takes some shuddering breaths. The ringing in her ears is replaced with the train’s engine as it gathers speed.