They had all loosened up by that stage, their conversation splitting in two. Hilary was leaning forward and listening to Anton describing the history of the street, how the houses had been built in the 1840s by a wine merchant, while Greg and Charlotte sat alongside each other discussing restaurants and pubs, and gossiping about the other neighbours.

‘That’s one of the wonderful things about gin, I find,’ she heard Charlotte say, ‘how it wends its way gloriously into all the limbs,’ and she put out her hand and touched Greg’s leg as she made her point, then left it there.

Until that moment, the atmosphere in the room had been convivial. But now the air seemed to shrink, charged with a new and dangerous mood. All of them were aware of Charlotte’s hand resting on Greg’s leg, the fingers slowly caressing the tiny hairs peeping out where the cotton of his shorts ended above the knee.

Hilary couldn’t quite believe it. Greg was just sitting there, staring now at his drink, frozen to the spot while those fingertips kept gliding up and down his thigh. And when Hilary’s eyes passed to Charlotte, she saw with a jolt that Charlotte was staring right back at her, a hard smile on her face, her eyes bright with the challenge. Confusion tangled her thoughts, and her heart was pounding with an unnamed fear. She hadn’t a clue what to do, completely out of her depth.

Greg knocked back the rest of his drink, and leant forward quickly, placing his glass on the coffee-table.

‘Well, that was lovely,’ he declared, getting to his feet.

Hastily, Hilary stood up, too, taking his cue.

They said their goodbyes and hurried back downstairs to the garden and into their flat. The door closed behind them and they fell against one another, elated, delirious in their disbelief, their shared excitement. ‘Oh, my God!’ they said, clinging to each other. ‘Did you see that?’ Their laughter and excitement mingled like an aphrodisiac, and it carried them to their bedroom where they abandoned themselves to a new, gleeful lust. But distantly, above them, Hilary was aware of voices raised, sharp words spoken. Sometime in the night, she awoke and heard a woman crying.

‘Hilary?’

Her attention snaps back to the table, and she sees Claire leaning towards her conspiratorially.

‘Is it true what I heard?’ Claire asks, her eyes flaring with ghoulish delight. ‘That man on your street – the one who murdered his wife – has he been released?’

Dryness in her throat. She reaches for her glass. ‘Yes, it’s true,’ she says, then takes a gulp and swallows.

‘My God,’ Anna says, her hand going to her neck. ‘And have you seen him? Is he back living in that house?’

‘I haven’t seen him, no, but I believe he is back.’