Was there CCTV footage of her entering Matthew’s house? How long is that kept? Will the police really go to those lengths?

The man in the wine shop. Why did she have to make small talk with him? Why not simply buy the thing and leave? Why couldn’t she do that?

Her credit card will prove she was there. Surely the police wouldn’t look there …

She doesn’t know what to do.

Should she come forward and say she was there?

If asked, should she say she got all the way to Matthew’s door perhaps, but turned back? Never went inside. Would that be enough?

But if she came forward now she’d put her own livelihood at risk, the career she’s been building, Medea, her growing reputation. And what would Maisie think of her if she found out? It would create problems just at a time when they both need to be focused and stable. She must be stable.

She thinks of the burnt pan and the Volt trainers, those petty things she’d been concerned about earlier in the evening, and what Adam said: maybe he was right when he said the universe puts good things and good people in your path. It’s important to be able to honour that.

Matthew has been so kind and generous this past year, she’d be nowhere without him. Surely Becky owes him more than going to the police and reporting what she may, or may not, have seen? Surely she owes him so much more than a betrayal?

Can she say nothing?

Chapter 17

The next evening, Becky slices through mushrooms, peppers, onions – far more than she needs for the recipe, but she finds the rocking motion of the knife soothing, the clean cut through skins, satisfying. She throws the vegetables into the wok. She can at least do this. She can at least feed her daughter well. The oil spits onto the backs of her hands and she lets it, feeling the scatter of needle-prick stings through her skin. The sound of the doorbell wrenches her out of this thing, this controlled stupor.

‘Mum, it’s for you,’ Maisie calls out, before returning to her piles of books and notes in the living room.

‘Rebecca Shawcross?’ asks the young man at the doorstep, glancing at his phone screen.

She is expecting a package to sign for: contracts or new bound scripts from the office, or perhaps that hand-made photo album she’d ordered for Maisie’s birthday. Here at last.

‘Can I help you with something?’ She wipes her palms down her jeans.

He glances up at her with pale green, watchful eyes, circled with dry flaking skin and red patches. He looks like an iguana, she thinks. ‘I’m from The Sun newspaper,’ he says. ‘I need a quote.’

She grips the doorframe with one hand to control the anxious quiver that has set itself waving through her blood. ‘What about?’