I stared at the smoke, at Alex’s long, broad back, and realised I simply didn’t know whether to believe him. He’d always had a strained relationship with the truth, and ultimately I’d stopped trusting him some time ago. He’d told one too many stories, and so now…

Piano music drifted suddenly into the room; a familiar haunting melody whose notes wrapped themselves around me and squeezed painfully. Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words. I felt a huge wave of sadness engulf me, infinite misery that this was our reality; that the sum total of my relationship with Alex was being here, now, snarled up in this mess.

‘Turn it off, Alex, please,’ I whispered.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ He turned from the window.

‘For God’s sake.’ I sat clumsily on a bamboo chair. ‘Do you really not remember?’ It felt like someone had just poured concrete into my veins. ‘Did nothing we ever did together, Alex, did nothing ever really matter to you?’

‘Of course it bloody did. But why should I remember it?’ He looked unworried still. ‘You know I’m crap with music.’

I thought miserably of Santana and the Kaiser Chiefs and Led Zeppelin, of all the lost iPods that I’d given him as presents that he then left in taxis and buses (‘I’ll get another one, Mag, and I’ll get you one too this time,’ he’d cajole, and he’d tickle my feet, and I’d sigh and forgive him yet again). I remembered the new stereo we’d bought that he’d kicked to bits one night when he was hideously drunk, during a row about Iraq. Ostensibly about Iraq, anyway. Always believed in things a little too fervently, Alex; always took things too personally when drunk.

I didn’t trust myself to speak now, grinding out my cigarette in an ashtray so ornamental it couldn’t be meant for use.

‘Is it, this music –’ he looked contemplative, ‘is it the one that – when we went down to Pendarlin that first Christmas and –’

‘You’re really cruel sometimes, you know.’ I stood. At the door I turned to gaze at him for a moment, at his familiar craggy face, trying desperately to tune into the Alex I’d first known, the one who hadn’t succumbed to all his demons.

‘If it is you, Alex, doing these weird things, please stop. You’ve made your point and you’re really scaring me now.’

‘Maggie, I swear it isn’t.’ Alex walked towards me now. ‘But it all sounds horrible. A bit mad. I’m worried about you.’

‘That makes a first.’

‘I mean, if someone is after you, like you say –’

I flinched. ‘I didn’t say after me, did I?’ I hauled my bag onto my shoulder. ‘And that reminds me – please don’t send people like Costana round when I’m not expecting them, okay? I nearly had a heart-attack yesterday morning.’

‘I thought you’d be at work. And you’d better get used to it.’ He refused to look contrite. ‘Estate agents need access. I did tell you.’