She opens a folder named, ‘Isle of Wight holiday, June 22–28, 2019’. Wasn’t this the time he told her he was working in Southampton? There’s the three of them together, all smiles. Max with this woman and boy at the same bloody cafe on the beach in Sandown where they always go. Instantly, an image of him chatting to the head waitress pops into her mind. She’d not taken much notice at the time but now she wonders if she recognised Max with this other woman and said something? Was he asking her to keep quiet? Come to think of it, she was always over the top with their girls, giving them extra scoops of ice cream and lollies at the end of their meals. Did she feel sorry for her? Maddy kicks Emily’s football hard at the fence. Both dogs start barking and howling.

She skims through dozens of photos of them on the beach, the pier, the arcade, bumper cars, even the saucy life-sized postcards where you put your head in the cut-out to have your photo taken. Why would he take this woman and child to the same holiday destination they always go to? Prickles rise on her head, her neck. Memories of her father with Lisa flutter through her mind. His lies, his carefully constructed double life. And now Max too? This is their place. There are even photos of the same hotel, the pool and gardens where they’ve spent year after year because he insisted on it. He told her it was nicer for the girls to feel like they were going to a home away from home. When she suggested they go to France or Spain instead, he said they could do that when they were older and would appreciate it more.

She zooms in on one of the hotel photos. There’s a couple of waiters in the background. What if the staff recognised him? Were they laughing at her behind her back?

There are no recent photos of Max but plenty of her with her growing bump. If it is his, wouldn’t he be posing next to it, to see if he can hear it or something equally cheesy? She seems that type, wanting to show off every aspect of her life to the world.

She clicks on the Instagram app and searches for her name. It comes up straight away with the same profile picture. Over three thousand followers. Staged photos of the perfect life: cups of creamy coffee or his and hers glasses of wine next to fairy lights in jars or trailing from a parasol. The side of Max’s handsome face holding a beer to his lips. Maddy joined Instagram several months ago but hardly uses it, so she doesn’t have much on her own page to distinguish her, none of Max or her own face, so she presses Alison’s ‘follow’ button, then closes her phone and shoves it in her pocket.