She heard him say his name to the caller, but one of her favourite soaps was about to start so she wasn’t focused on what else he was saying until she heard, ‘Yeah, that’s right. It’s registered to this address.’ A pause. ‘Yeah, that’s Sharon. My girlfriend. It’s her car.’

Sharon jumped off the sofa just as she heard him saying, ‘I don’t think she was out that night. Hang on, I’ll ask her.’

She snatched the phone out of his hand and pressed the button to end the call.

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Jez asked.

‘Who was it? Who wanted to know about my car?’

‘Jesus, Shaz, what’s got into you? It was the police, okay?’

She shook her head, gripping both of Jez’s upper arms tightly and giving him a small shake.

‘It wasn’t the police. If it rings again, don’t answer it, okay?’

‘What the hell are you talking about? You’re behaving like a loony. He said he was calling from Greater Manchester Police. He was a detective.’ He shook himself free of her grasp.

‘No, he wasn’t. He was lying.’

Jez grabbed hold of Sharon’s hands. ‘Come and sit down. Talk to me.’

Just then the phone started to ring again. He reached for it.

‘No!’ she shouted.

Jez shook his head and cancelled the call. ‘I wasn’t going to take it, babe. Not until you’ve told me what on earth’s wound you up.’

She had no idea what to say. How was she going to get out of this? She had the few seconds it took them to return to the sofa to come up with something plausible and as close to the truth as possible.

‘What night was he asking about?’ she said to Jez.

‘A couple of weeks ago – that Thursday night when I stayed at Al’s. You were in all night, weren’t you?’

‘No. I forgot to tell you. Some of the girls from work had organised a surprise pre-wedding do for me at that new club in town. I took the car because I didn’t want to drink much.’

Jez gave her a puzzled frown. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Oh, with everything else in my head, I forgot. You were full of your night out with Al, and we had so much other stuff to talk about that was more important. It was no big deal.’

‘Okay, so why do you think someone other than the police would be phoning about your car?’

Now came the difficult bit.

‘When I left the club – before all the others, by the way – I got in the car to come home and I felt a bit…I don’t know, nostalgic, I suppose. We’re getting married soon, and everything will change.’