In Lancashire, Gail got ready to go to church with her mother-in-law, amused at what a naive fool Mary Prichard was, so cocooned from the real world that she didn’t know which way was up. Her mother-in-law moved from home to church to shops, associated only with family and friends she’d known for years, and didn’t even watch the TV news because she said it focused on the wrong things, death and disaster.

Although she was longing for a drink, Gail didn’t dare take even one mouthful of wine. The drink could wait; her marriage couldn’t. Why hadn’t Tom told her he was Jez Winter’s son? Why hadn’t he done something about it earlier?

When the Prichards’ car drew up at the gate, Gail fixed a smile to her face and went out to join them.

The service wasn’t as boring as she’d expected because the music was great. Then there was a session where a couple of new members were ‘called’ and staggered to the front to confess their sins and be accepted into the church. Gail studied that carefully, because she might have to do it to convince people she’d reformed. She’d rather not, though. The mere thought of doing it made her want to laugh hysterically, so she called up an image of Tom, swanning around in a luxury hotel, and that did the trick, took away all desire to laugh.

It was nice not to have to look after the children. It had been a mistake to have the second one. Two were ten times the trouble of one. But it had kept Tom with her and that was the main thing. Now that he was rich, they could hire someone to look after Hayley and Ryan.

The singing restarted, a song she knew because Tom sang it sometimes. She liked it when he sang to her and had been sorry when she realised she’d smashed his guitar, terrified too because he’d looked like he was going to thump her. Thinking of that made more tears come to her eyes.

When Mary pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand, she accepted it with a sniff and wiped her eyes, taking care not to smudge her make-up. Afterwards she told her mother-in-law she’d been crying at the memory of Tom playing his guitar but that didn’t seem to go down well.

What had Jez Winter ever seen in boring old Mary Prichard?

When she got home, Gail opened one of the bottles of wine she’d hidden away and gulped a whole glass down. It had been very wearing being nice to a fool. She’d earned this.

Some time later she was surprised to find that she’d drunk the whole bottle without noticing it. But she didn’t let herself open a second one, much as she’d have liked to, because she had to be up early the following morning. Mary was coming round to help her clean the house. What fun that would be!

‘Damn you, Tom Prichard!’ she said as she made her way up to bed. ‘I’ll pay you back for this one day.’