‘Hey – you helped me out with that, have you forgotten that, you bastard? I saved your fucking life, incidentally. You ought to be thanking me. Instead, you’re flinging that back in my face and fucking off to America. We put them away. You and me. Both of us.’ Now she was shouting down the phone at him. ‘So you start that shit with me and we’ll go down together. They can find whatever’s left of the Cleavers and I’ll be done for, but you know what, Josh? You will be too, because I’ll sing like a fucking canary.’

Josh was silent, his mouth suddenly dry.

The venom in this woman. The hatred.

‘What did you do to Claire?’ he burst out. He was sweating now. He was Fearless Flynn and he was scared of no man. But this madwoman on the end of the phone, whose voice pierced his brain like knives? Yes. Right now, she scared him.

‘What?’ That stopped her in her tracks.

‘Claire Milo. She vanished the night we left the camp. You know that. You hated her because she was going to marry me. Did you do something to her? Or was it your fucking boyfriend Jeb Cleaver?’ Josh knew what she’d done. He shouldn’t be saying this, baiting her, but the words were pouring out of his mouth like a collapsed dam, he couldn’t help it.

‘What the f—’

‘And Philippa. Dave’s wife. You hated her and – surprise, surprise – she’s dead, did you know that? I met him in the boozer and he told me. She drowned in the river. Was that you too, you poisonous bitch?’

There was total silence.

Josh was breathing hard. He closed his eyes, steadied himself. Shit, he had to stop this. Had she hung up?

‘Shaun . . . ?’ he said at last.

‘If you’re screwing some little cow over there, you’re going to be sorry,’ she said.

The chill threat in her voice made his flesh creep.

‘Bye, Shaun,’ he said, and slammed the phone down.

He was shaken. Stupid, she was thousands of miles away. But he’d felt her presence like a curse, right here with him. Drawing in gulps of air, he went over to the window, stared out at the skyscrapers, standing hazy in the weak late-afternoon sun. Then someone slipped their arms around him from behind and he recoiled in shock.

‘Josh? Honey, you OK?’

It was Claire, and she was watching him with concern.

Josh drew her close against him. ‘She thinks something’s going on,’ he said in the warm circle of her arms, crushing her to him in a bear hug.