It turns out that she – Madalyn Cardew – is Lyn. Some silly, shortened nickname he used, but it’s her. I know that now. Jeremy’s Lyn. Oh, I hate even thinking of her in that way. Jeremy’s Lyn. His Lyn. His! No, I was his, and he was mine.

I had accepted that he had a wife. Insipid, insignificant, but necessary. He had an image to maintain, a standing within his career, his world. And there was a daughter, still very young. He could not contemplate the possibility of a divorce and its consequences. I accepted too that there had been others before me, that liaisons were inevitable when a marriage was unhappy, a man unfulfilled. But somehow they didn’t count. The wife, the lovers, the confidantes. I could not let them enter my thoughts. They were there before me, and the past is, sadly, unchangeable. What’s done is done. But once we had found each other, I truly believed we would be together for ever. I never expected there to be anyone after me, instead of me …

He looked after me in his own way, gave me a flat to live in, made sure I felt grateful enough not to tell, but I never saw him again. Once, on stage, from my seat at the back of the stalls, but he did not know I was there. And on TV from time to time, my breath caught in my throat at the sudden sight of him there in my own home. But never to speak to, never to touch.

I gave up the café. He was everywhere there, in its walls and its windows, and I could not cope with that. I did write to him some months later, a last attempt to hang on, to grab back at least his friendship if not his heart, to recapture something at any price, even if it meant having to share him, but he did not reply. I knew then that he was utterly lost to me. To say that it broke me would not be entirely true, but it certainly hardened me, changed me, and not, I know now, for the better.

I thought it was her – Lyn – in her flat that night. I thought she had come back, caught me snooping, trespassing, that she would report me to the police, shame me. I let my temper, my anger, my jealousy, get the better of me. Some primal instinct rose up in me, to protect myself, to escape, to survive. And I hit her. I hit her hard, and I left her there, bleeding. But it was not her. It was the wrong woman.

I don’t know if the girl will live. Perhaps it is better I die not knowing. If I am a murderer, I prefer not to know it. Either way, how am I supposed to live with what I have done? She was a sweet girl, with a good heart. She wanted to help others, to make a difference. I hope I have not broken that in her.