He looked at the paperwork by their feet. A tear fell and landed on one of the pages.

‘He wasn’t just going to steal Neena’s money. He was going to take ours too. And what’s worse – you were to get all the blame.’

He bent his knees and snatched at the paperwork, scanning the words for the truth. She was lying. She wanted to break his heart until he couldn’t fight her any more.

‘Check the envelope,’ she said.

He looked up at her. She nodded towards a brown A4 envelope amongst the papers. He snatched it up from the floor and tore it open. Inside were a dozen passports.

‘Check them. Check every single one.’

He wanted to defy her, but he was desperate to prove her wrong. He checked the first passport and saw a picture of James. The name beside it wasn’t his. He checked another, and another. When he had checked them all, he stared at the ground as tears streamed down his cheeks. Every single passport had his photo but with a different name.

‘You didn’t even know his name,’ she said with a laugh. ‘He played you. He played us. I just saved you from going to prison for extortion. You could have got fourteen years for a stunt like that.’

‘He wouldn’t… he would never…’

‘Oh, grow up, Richard. Look what’s right in front of you. How much more evidence do you need?’

‘He loved me…’ He covered his face and sobbed. He didn’t care what she thought of him any more. She had broken his heart, torn it to pieces and scattered it across the floor. She bent down to his level and gently removed his hands from his face.

‘No, darling, he didn’t. But I do.’

His knees buckled and he fell back until he was sitting on the floor with his face buried in his hands. He was so distraught that he didn’t even fight her when he felt her arms wrap around him, or when he felt her lower his head to her chest and rock him as he sobbed.

* * *

The clock struck three. Richard drank whisky from his glass and stared blankly. Amber watched him from the other side of the island. They had been that way for hours.

‘You didn’t have to kill him,’ he said. His voice was hoarse from all the tears he had shed.

‘You know I did. He would have ruined us if I hadn’t intervened.’

‘You could have threatened to go to the police. He didn’t have to die.’

‘He would have implicated you for the crime, don’t you see that? I did it to protect you just as much as I did to protect myself.’

‘How could you do it? How could you watch a man die like that and do nothing?’

‘You’ll understand why I did it, once the shock passes.’