‘Happy New Year!’ Radek hurried out.

Pax grabbed the vodka. She knew she could call Mack from the hotel phone, try to pacify him, reassure him, entreat him not to rake up the past, but she couldn’t face the ranting and paranoia; he was at least half a bottle of Scotch ahead of her and they were getting nowhere. Let him freeze to the roof with his self-pitying tears. He wasn’t getting Kes.

In the bathroom to pee, she caught her reflection, registering her hard-heartedness, shocked by it. Had her mother felt this way about her father, or was it different with a lover to share the burden? Should she just find somebody to sleep with to exonerate Mack, like divorcing husbands in the fifties forced to book a prostitute and a hotel for the private detective to photograph, grounds for divorce established.

She thought fleetingly of Bay, her first teenage love, their reunion at her grandfather’s funeral coinciding with the dawning realisation that her marriage was beyond repair. Their paths had crossed several times since then, his flirtation an open invitation, his reputation a big BEWARE sign. She’d seen past it all. Now a husband and father, his eyes mirrored hers, a fellow member of the unhappy spouse club, a secret society whose members became evermore apparent to Pax these days. One certainly didn’t have to look too closely to see the cracks all over Bay’s marriage to his icy Dutch wife. But cracked mirrors brought bad luck. He’d broken her heart twice over fourteen years ago, and revenge on both their houses was not her style.

If Mack thought she was having an affair, he didn’t know her at all. But that, surely, was at the decayed roots of it all – his wife had always been ultra-feminine and submissive in his eyes, needing a big, strong man to steer the way. Had Tishy been lying in another man’s bed, he’d find this easier to comprehend. Pax, alone and defiant, made no sense to him.

Within minutes, she was pacing frantically again, faster than ever, the restless laps of the marriage breaker. The puppy was now snoring contentedly under the luggage rack, full of steak. She turned on the television, not caring what was showing, just needing its comforting glow. An old Bond movie was halfway through, Sean Connery’s brio so reminiscent of Mack’s – reassuringly familiar, chauvinist and offering a straightforward solution to problem women. Troublesome Bond girls, those beauties who were too clingy, too bright, or in love with the baddies, simply died.

The vodka had barely touched the sides. When she tried to call room service for another, there was no answer. They were all probably in the bar. She could get free drinks in the bar, she remembered.

Luca O’Brien was arriving soon. She had to limit herself. One more at most. Two if he really was delayed until the early hours.

She ran a bath to stall for time, chin deep in bubbles, eyes closed briefly, until the thought of losing Kes forced her back out with a great tide of splashing water. She had to keep moving.