I shook my head. I hadn’t been aware of him spending any time with Clare outside the time we all spent together. He was in Belfast on week nights and we’d spent every weekend for as long as I could remember sat on either end of our sofa playing at some sort of normal family life.

‘What night of the week was that?’ I asked.

DI Bradley looked down at his file. ‘A Wednesday,’ he said.

‘Well, then, it can’t be him, because he’s always in Belfast on a Wednesday night. Let me see the picture again.’

Julie pushed it towards me, but there was no mistaking that my husband was in the photo. The image was grainy but clear enough to leave no doubt at all in my mind. I could see his hair, his profile. I could even see the wedding ring on his left hand, which he’d draped casually over my best friend’s shoulder.

‘There has to be some innocent explanation,’ Julie said. ‘And it doesn’t mean he hurt her.’

‘Of course it doesn’t,’ DI Bradley said. ‘Nonetheless, we do need to speak to him, preferably as soon as possible. Can you also give us his mobile phone number, Rachel? So we can check it against our records.’

I rhymed it off robotically. I felt Julie, Julie who’d been falling apart just minutes before, reach over and take my hand. She was trying to act like the strong one for me now. I resented it. I pulled my hand away.

‘Is he at home today?’ DI Bradley asked.

‘No. He’s in Belfast. Or he should be in Belfast,’ I said with a hollow laugh. ‘He’ll be home tonight.’

I thought of the scratches. I should tell the police. I knew that. But I was scared. Scared to say anything that would make this worse. I thought of my daughters. How they hero-worshipped him. How I had once, too. This would break them. Did I want to protect him? A part of me thought that maybe I did. And I didn’t want to say it in front of Julie. I know that was bizarre. She knew everything about me. But I didn’t want to see pity in her eyes.

It didn’t mean anything, did it? The scratches, and the mystery dinner with Clare, and the lies …

But I was kidding myself. I had to say something. Even if it made me feel sick to do so. I couldn’t be complicit in protecting him if, and it was a big if, he had done something.

‘He had scratches on his arm,’ I blurted.

Three sets of eyes were on me.

‘When?’ DI Bradley asked.

‘Last week. Thursday. Friday. I can’t remember exactly.’

‘Did he say what caused them?’ Constable King asked.