He shook his finger in her face, as if his words were a point of terrible regret. ‘And not just because I love you so fucking much it hurts me to even think of my own life without you, but because I know what that would do to our children. All they want is their mother. But you’re too damn selfish to notice, let alone give a shit.’

The night air seemed to crackle with the energy that was rising off him.

‘Tom, I …’ she tried to respond but her words fell away as he stormed into the house, raising his hand against her feeble attempts to defend herself as he walked back through the kitchen and vanished through the hall, leaving a steaming trail of hatred in his wake.

Chapter 46

Isobel

It is still dark when I open my eyes, taking a while to comprehend the throbbing pain in my temples, my head wedged between the bottom stair and the skirting board.

I don’t know how long it takes, with the help of the walls, to pull myself to sitting, to acknowledge the metallic tang in my mouth is the taste of my own blood.

When I finally manage to dig my phone from my pocket and call 999, asking for police, an ambulance arrives too.

‘I must have hit my head when I fell,’ I say.

‘Well, it’s quite a bump, we should take you to the Royal Free,’ the paramedic replies, but I shake my head insistently, triggering another wave of pain.

‘I’m fine. If it gets worse I’ll come in. My boyfriend will be here in half an hour. Honestly …’

When the paramedics finally leave it is just me and two police officers, noting down details of the scene in their notepads, snippets of conversation cutting in and out over their radios.

As I sit watching them, I can’t help but imagine the place through their eyes. No fancy TV, no paintings, no expensive jewellery; nothing apart from a laptop, which I’d had with me when I left the house, to tempt even the most desperate burglar. The closest thing to decoration – a precariously stacked pile of books on the table – had been tossed across the floor.

No wonder they didn’t take anything, I see them thinking, if this is all she has.

I don’t tell them the real reason for the break-in. Not after last time, not after Jess. For a moment, I see her, her eyes fixed on the sky, the blue lights flashing above her head.

My only hope is Oscar. OK, so he let me down the last time I saw him, but if I could just persuade him at least to run the fingerprints, which the officers are taking now, once they’re logged onto the system and then share the results with me, then I can do my own research.