‘. . . yes, it’s fine. I mean, he’s no better than he usually is, but no worse either.’ A squeak as Fran sits in Dominic’s office chair. ‘Hang on . . . I thought I heard something.’ Her footsteps tap lightly across the wooden floor of the office and I scuttle around the corner and put one foot on the stairs as if just coming down, but she doesn’t appear. ‘No, it’s fine, must be my imagination. I thought he was back for a moment.’ I let myself breathe again, and tiptoe back round to the office door. ‘He’s so . . . you know, he grabbed me again the other day, in the kitchen. Was screaming in my face. And I know that no one believes me when I tell them that he has this . . . side to him. I’ve got to hang in there, for Laurel, you know? Once I get her home then maybe . . . maybe I can see a way out. But I need her back first.’ Fran gives a dramatic sniff, and I decide enough is enough. She’s clearly on the phone to her mother again, so I am intruding on what is a private and personal conversation.

Fran’s words run round in my head as I return to the kitchen to wait for her to finish her conversation. He grabbed me again . . . she must be referring to the day I saw them together in the kitchen. A shudder runs down my spine, as I remember the look on his face as he hurled the glass into the fireplace, the way his eyes narrowed, and his cheeks flushed an angry, ugly red. I have never, ever seen Dominic like that before. He simply isn’t the man that I know.

I think back to the tail end of summer, when it was my birthday. I had come downstairs in the morning to find a home-made card next to a plate of toast and a mug of tea.

‘A little bird tells me it’s your birthday,’ Dominic had said, as Laurel giggled on the stool next to him. I had kissed her, and thanked him, a little bit tearful at the thought that had gone into it, when Fran entered the room.

‘It’s your birthday?’ she’d said, frowning at the card before turning to Dominic. ‘Well, Dominic, I’m sure Anna is delighted to be reminded she’s another year older. Why didn’t you buy her some eye cream and be done with it?’ Before flouncing out of the house to yet another audition.

I simply can’t reconcile the man who would be that thoughtful – that nice – with the man I saw in the kitchen the other night.