‘I pretended to leave,’ he says next. ‘Drunk as I was, I knew that I didn’t want any of our neighbours to suspect. I hid in the bathroom until the last person left, and then I went and found Charlotte. She was in the kitchen, cleaning up. “I thought you’d gone,” she said.’

He stops, a wary look coming over his face. ‘Well, I think you know what happened next,’ he says.

‘Tell me.’ Her voice has lost its softness. She is calm, but her tone is hard, her gaze steely.

‘We started kissing. Things were getting a bit out of hand. I mean, I thought that was what I’d wanted. She was a good-looking woman and I wanted to get my own back on him – and punish you too. But somehow, when it came to it … It was weird being with her, like it just wasn’t right. She smelt different from you, she felt different. When I kissed her, rather than feeling aroused, I felt kind of … intimidated. It was embarrassing. We were both there together with one aim in mind, and I just couldn’t …’

His hand goes up to cover his eyes. It’s like he has to shield himself from her gaze as he tells her what happened. Hilary listens without saying a word. She imagines the scene: the two of them entwined in that kitchen, Charlotte fumbling with the buttons of his jeans, reaching inside to find … What? Shyness. Softness. Humiliation.

‘She kept laughing at me. Thought it was hilarious. I tried to walk out and leave her, but she kept pulling at me, stood in front of me, barring my way out into the hall. And all the while she’s laughing and mocking me, saying stuff – lewd, disgusting stuff. I just wanted to get away from her. “Perhaps, if I act more like your stupid little wife,” she said. And then – then she starts putting on this voice, this whiny little voice, like she was trying to mimic you but in the worst possible way. Saying those disgusting things in that ugly voice – I just wanted her to shut up!’ His eyes bulge, his voice lowered to an angry hiss. And then his gaze drops, falls to the knife sitting between them on the polished surface of the table.

‘There’d been a cake,’ he says forlornly. ‘She’d used the knife to slice it.’

The work of an instant. A rush of blood to the head. One swift movement of the hand.

‘I couldn’t believe what I’d done,’ he says, his voice small and astonished. ‘She just went down. I didn’t know what to do – there was so much blood. Everything just happened so fast. A few seconds – a minute. I was afraid to touch her, even to feel for a pulse. Not that I needed to. I could see she was dead.’