He stared at her. She remembered the door was locked and he was only feet away. She really could have handled this better. And then realised she didn’t really care. Whatever a tether was, she had come to the end of hers. If she could just get him to face up to the reality of his situation, then at least she would have achieved something in her life.

‘Jane, what are you talking about?’

‘I saw you.’

‘Saw me what?’

‘Kill Sarah Smith.’

‘No, you didn’t. You can’t have.’ And there it was again. Bewilderment and indignation.

‘I did. You pushed past me. I don’t think you saw me but I was there.’

‘Oh – was that you? Sorry – I didn’t notice.’

‘Of course you didn’t. Why would you? You’d just killed Sarah Smith.’

She finally had the satisfaction of knowing she’d rendered him speechless.

‘What? . . . I . . . What? How could you think . . . ? Why would I kill Sarah Smith?’

She was unable to read his face but he sounded completely flabbergasted. Not angry. Or dangerous. Just – flabbergasted.

‘You had a row, Luke. I heard you shouting at her.’

‘The whole building probably heard me shouting at her. She was springing one of the neatest little traps I’ve ever seen. I could have been in real trouble there.’

She blinked. ‘You were in real trouble there. She was about to eat you alive.’

‘Jane, have a little faith, will you?’

‘She was pregnant, Luke.’

He shrugged. ‘Jane, if she was pregnant – and I’m not convinced – it was nothing to do with me.’

Jane stared at him. At that moment she had never disliked him more. The spoiled rich boy dodging his responsibilities with a casual disinterest that nearly took her breath away.

‘Luke . . .’

He heaved an enormous sigh. ‘Jane, please. Why is it always so easy for you to believe the worst of me? According to you, I’m the sort of person who would murder his pregnant girlfriend to evade his responsibilities.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Yes, Jane, you kind of did. Look, my old man’s a bastard, but he’s not stupid. He knew this sort of thing would happen to me at some point in my life, so when I was about fifteen, we had “the chat”. Well, not him, personally – he sent someone else, obviously, and they had “the chat”, but “the chat” was definitely had. And after “the chat” came “the treatment”.’

She stared at him. ‘The treatment?’

He shook his head. ‘Seriously Jane, I can’t believe you don’t know this. You nip into the clinic – a quick local anaesthetic – a tiny snip – and back out again in time to get down the pub and watch the footie that evening. No inadvertent Parrishes to clutter up the landscape.’

‘But . . . that’s awful.’