Charlie looked over my shoulder into the hallway before turning her attention to me, her face stony, eyes cold. But despite her expression she looked lovely: her hair looked just-washed, her long black coat hugging the contours of her body, her face clear and fresh. I closed the door and stepped onto the pavement.

‘I knew it,’ she said.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked softly.

She ignored the question. ‘I knew you’d be here. With her.’ Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. ‘Don’t worry, Andrew. I’m not going to cause a scene. I just think it would have been decent of you to tell me where you were or answer my fucking calls.’

Her voice was very quiet and even, right up until the final two words.

‘I’m sorry. I thought—’

She interrupted me again, her voice returning to its previous quiet tone. I found this more unnerving than if she’d screamed and shouted. Plus something here didn’t make sense. She wasn’t following the script I had sketched out in my head.

‘I’ve been at your flat all night, trying to stay calm, wondering if you’d had an accident. I even phoned the hospital. Then I figured it out. That you’d be with her.’

I blinked. ‘Hang on. Haven’t you been with the police?’

She frowned at me. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

I was speechless. She hadn’t been arrested. She hadn’t even been questioned. My mind raced.

Charlie had already moved on. ‘So are you going to deny it this time? That you fucked her?’

I think I must have looked very stupid at that moment, my mouth gaping open, unable to defend myself because I didn’t know if I’d had sex with Sasha, was still reeling from the news that Charlie hadn’t been arrested. What were the police playing at?

I managed to get a grip of myself. ‘Come on, let’s go somewhere else to talk.’ I reached out for her arm and she snatched it away like I was made of shit.

‘What? Don’t want to upset her? Is she up there, listening out of the window? Doesn’t want all the neighbours to know what she is? A serial home wrecker.’

‘Please, Charlie, come on. It’s nothing to do with Sasha.’

Reluctantly, she followed me down the road and around the corner, where there was a small park with a couple of benches and a few bare trees. The sky was almost white, like it was going to snow again. I sat on a bench that glistened with frost and gestured for Charlie to sit beside me.

‘No,’ she said.

I didn’t know what to do. If the police hadn’t talked to her, she wouldn’t know anything about all the things I suspected her of. Karen, the heroin, Kristi. All of it.