She bowed her head again and began twisting her fingers. ‘After the divorce, Charles began to make things difficult because we had joint custody. I had fully agreed with him that he could, when Clara was home from school, stay at the house. In reality, some time before we even divorced, we were sleeping in separate bedrooms, but over the past year it had become unbearable. It wasn’t just when Clara was at home for the weekend; he was making it permanent and would simply turn up and often be abusive. These occasions began to form a pattern. He would be unpleasant towards me, although he was never physically abusive: he would scream and rant, then start sobbing like a child, begging me to forgive him.’

‘Were you aware of his sexual deviances?’ Jane asked.

Justine took an intake of breath and looked up. ‘Yes, of course I was. How could I not be? It wasn’t something that just occurred overnight. It went on for years and years. Even in those instances when I was so naive and caught him out going to prostitutes, he would react by weeping and crying like a child. He blamed his mother and said that she had been cruel and had never loved him. In answer to your question, I did know about it but I didn’t know the lengths he was going to in the latter part of his life. I had even suggested to him that he should see a psychiatrist. But to someone like Charles, that was an insult to his intelligence. Our tempestuous relationship had been a rollercoaster for so many years and I found it excruciatingly difficult to deal with him. I gave up my career for him. I financed him when he first began as an agent. But the more successful he became, the more I felt he despised me.’

Tyler coughed. ‘Could you please just answer the question about the parking ticket?’

‘I am getting to it,’ she replied, with a hint of annoyance, as if a member of the audience had interrupted one of her performances. Once again, Jane could see a different character appearing. She no longer held her hands demurely in her lap but was gesturing expressively.