Max sighs. ‘I was with someone years before you and she got pregnant, but her family told me she’d had an abortion. They forced me to move away, change my name. But it turns out she had the baby. I only found out by accident.’

They hear a loud clunk. The dogs have pushed the door handle down and broken out. They scamper and skid down the hall into the living room, jumping up at him, licking his face and hands.

‘Three dogs?’ He tries to fend them off, but they continue to jump all over him unable to contain their excitement.

‘I know all about your other family… Adam,’ she hisses.

‘It was you.’ Max grabs her wrist.

She shakes her hand free. ‘I quite like the way you’ve done your house out. Funny that everything’s so similar to ours.’

‘Do you know what’s happened to the baby?’

‘What baby?’

‘Alison’s baby. Don’t you watch the news?’

Maddy crosses her arms. ‘You mean your baby.’

‘I was coming to that, I’m so sorry.’

‘Sorry you slept with her or sorry you’ve been found out?’

‘Please tell me if you know where the baby is.’

‘You got two women pregnant and you decided to jump off a bridge. What kind of a father are you?’ She flicks her hand at him.

‘She got pregnant without telling me.’

‘Do you think I’m stupid?’ She laughs hysterically. ‘You’ve been sleeping with another woman – living with her, playing happy families.’

‘She tried to trap me.’

‘Ahh, trouble in paradise. Am I meant to feel sorry for you? Were you ever going to tell me?’

‘Yes, I wanted to…’ Max covers his face with his hands, ‘…so many times.’ He leans back in his seat and shuts his eyes. She pours more whiskey for herself, drinking it in one before refilling both glasses. She holds one out to Max, nudging him until he opens his eyes. He takes it from her, staring ahead, unblinking, and drinks it down.

‘But it was easier for you if we thought you were dead?’

‘I wanted to come back here to be with you and Emily.’

‘Why didn’t you leave her then?’ she shouts.

‘I wanted to, but she must have sensed I wanted out. Next thing I knew, she was expecting.’

‘And so was I.’ Maddy growls in his face. ‘What about me and our baby?’

‘I didn’t know what to do.’ His hands twist together.

‘You could have come home at any time.’

‘It was complicated.’ He drags his hands down his face.

She sits back and waits.

‘Because like I said, she had a baby eight years ago, a son I thought had been aborted.’

‘Ah yes, young Jamie, a fine boy.’

Max looks up. ‘He knows about Emily. Was it you, coming to the house?’

‘So, you never thought to mention you had a son before we got married?’