“She was wearing my coat.” I hadn’t expected to say the words. They just came out. It had always stayed with me, that Em had been wearing my coat, that and the sad little melody Peter had been playing on the piano.

“What about that Marcus of yours? You’d just cheated on him. Maybe I wasn’t the only one to hear you. You didn’t look that different, not from behind anyway.”

I shook my head. “Punch someone out in the pub, yes. Start a fight on a football pitch … but no. Marc, I pushed him at times. Four years we were together and if he was ever going to hit me, he’d have done it. I wanted to know if he could, to find out so I could feel safe, but no. Not once. He wanted to see himself as a white knight, a good guy. It was everything to him.”

“Or maybe Em and David had been at it all those years ago too, ever think of that? They might have had a bone to pick with one another. And your friend Peter didn’t have the best mental health, I would say.”

I stared down at my plate. Eventually Rob tried to lift the mood. “In all honesty, it probably was an accident, Andy. I’m sure Peter will turn up. You’ll see.”

I ate my way through a steak and a tarte au citron, putting my hand over my glass every time Rob tried to fill it with wine. I kept up the questions about David and in return he asked me inappropriate questions, to which I gave boring, bland answers because the truth was boring and bland.

“You got domesticated. Is it only outwardly? Secretly are you someone else?” When I looked at my watch for the third time, Rob put his hand on top of mine. “Not too late for us, Andy.”

With my other hand, I reached over and bent his finger back. But gently.

“Alice might know,” Rob said. “Alice acts like she knows something. But then she always does. I’ll have a word. If I ask her, she’ll meet you. She’s in the Cotswolds. You’ll probably have to go down.”

In the vestibule, I waited while my coat was brought.

“Would you like me to call a cab?”

“I think I’ll walk.”

The cloakroom attendant looked dubious. “It’s still raining. Norfolk’s flooded, Chepstow too. Even worse on the Continent.” He was in his early sixties, with an honest, affable face. Glancing around to see that no one was in earshot, he leaned forward. “Tell you what, we’ve stacks of umbrellas, hundreds of the things. People leave them behind all the time. Just wander off home without them. Some have been here decades. I’ll fetch you one.”

He came back with a rather fine navy blue affair with a wooden handle.