‘We went for a coffee. Long story short, Begsey was beating her up but had managed to convince her that it was all her fault for not cooking his dinner or not keeping the house tidy or for dressing the wrong way. I begged her to leave him but she wouldn’t. She said she loved him and he’d promised her he’d change. A couple of months later, she discovered she was pregnant. The beatings hadn’t stopped and she was scared of losing the baby. I helped her to move out and into my spare room. Unfortunately she did lose the baby. It could have been one of those things but it could have been Begsey’s fault. I convinced her to report him and helped her through the court case.’

A huge lump formed in my throat at the thought of him falling in love with and marrying someone else. And, much as I wanted to hate his wife, my heart went out to her… if he wasn’t lying again.

‘How long have you been married?’ I already knew from his real Facebook profile but I wanted to hear it from him.

‘Four years. Our friendship developed and, after a couple of rough relationships myself, I mistook it for love and I asked her to marry me. It’s been good but, after I met you, I realised that—’

‘Why the false name?’ I snapped. I wasn’t ready to hear the, ‘I don’t love her, I love you,’ spiel which was clearly where this was heading. ‘Were you worried I’d find you on Facebook and discover you were really married?’

He shook his head. ‘It was nothing like that. It’s so stupid. Fi and I went through this phase at school where we had to introduce ourselves to strangers using the name of a character from a cartoon, film or TV series. It was obvious stuff like Mickey Mouse or Luke Skywalker. After we got married, we started it up again but with slightly more obscure characters. If the stranger recognised the name and mentioned it you lost and had to do the ironing for a month. If you got away with it, the other one had to do the ironing.’ His cheeks flushed.

‘So you’re telling me that Scott Hastings literally is a fictional character?’

He nodded. ‘Fi loves Strictly Come Dancing and a friend introduced her to this Australian film from the nineties called Strictly Ballroom. Have you seen it?’

‘I think so. Years ago.’