But she was remembering some of the things that had bothered her over the years, the little things that Ray had said that had hit a nerve. Once they were discussing Lenny’s death with the boys when they were teenagers, and Ray had said that their dad had been wearing a dark-blue suit. At the time she had thought he had read the police report, or she had mentioned it, but deep down she must have registered that he had known more than he was letting on and she had assumed he was trying to protect her.

Now, looking into Reggie’s eyes, she realised that what he was saying was the truth. She had brought her husband’s murderer into her home, she had mated with him and she had handed him Lenny’s sons on a plate. She could not believe that her whole life had been built on another lie. A big, fat, stinking lie that made so much sense even as she tried to deny it to herself. She put her hand over her mouth and she groaned in actual pain.

‘What have I done, Reggie! Oh God, what the fuck have I done?’

He stood up and hugged her to him and he said sadly, ‘That’s just it, Sharon. You haven’t done anything, darling.’

She was staring ahead as if in a trance and he poured her another brandy and helped her to take a swallow as her hands were shaking too much to hold the glass herself.

‘You know what is going to happen now, don’t you, Sharon? You understand that this has to be redressed?’

His words penetrated her brain and she nodded. ‘He is a murderer for hire, Sharon. He tortures for money but, from what I can gather, he loves every second of it. He tortured Lenny and took him out, darling. Did you know Lenny had been paralysed – that he couldn’t move while he felt every cut and every blow? Jack paid off the Filth so it was reported as a mugging. He had to, I understand that. It’s part of the game. But, to think that Ray came to you, to all of us, as a wilting fucking virgin, like butter wouldn’t melt . . . And, all the time, he knew what he had done.’

Sharon felt physically sick at that knowledge. She had slept with Ray – she had given him rights over the sons of a man he had murdered. She had borne him a child, a daughter that he had infected with his fucking filth.

‘I am going to fucking kill him. I am going to remove him from the earth, Sharon. I don’t care that he is Kathy’s dad. She is better off without him.’