Still she refuses to remove her hands from her face. She has lost everything. The dream that life could return to normal has ended. This is her reality – this small damp flat, her mind-numbing job and her cold, resentful husband. She’s been holding her breath for two years and her lungs have run out of air.

‘I know you didn’t do it to hurt me,’ Tom says softly. ‘You were trying to help. I get it. But …’ He sighs heavily. ‘I hadn’t even been out of prison for twenty-four hours. You don’t … you have no idea where my head is at. I just needed some breathing space, Kate. To get used to this flat, to you, to being a free man again …’ He tails off and, for several seconds all she can hear is the thumping of her pulse in her ears.

She slides her hands away from her eyes and turns to look at him. He’s hunched over, his forearms on his thighs. She reaches a hand out to touch the curve of his back, an instinctive movement to comfort him, but her hand falls away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

Tom says nothing.

‘I wanted to help put things right.’

When he still doesn’t respond she speaks quickly, desperately, filling the silence in the small room.

‘There are still people out there who love you, who support you. It’s not all hate.’

Her husband twists round so sharply it makes her jump.

‘So?’

‘So we start again.’ She shifts position and sits up. ‘There are still people out there who want your help.’

He stares at her, brow knitted, his eyes searching hers. ‘I can’t help anyone.’

‘Of course you can. It’s what you do.’

‘What I did.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, Tom. They know that.’

‘The jury thought otherwise.’

‘They …’ The words dry up on her tongue. They’ve had this discussion so many times she can’t bear to go through it again. ‘What the court decided and what the people who follow you think are two different things. They don’t believe the stuff they read in the papers. They know you from your tweets, your YouTube videos and your events. They believe in you, they trust you.’

‘Then they’re idiots.’

She wants to shake him. To slap him. To crawl inside his skull and jump-start his brain. The despair in his voice and the despondency in his eyes is worse than the rage. At least when he was screaming at her and smashing the doorbell off the wall he looked alive. This man isn’t her husband. He’s not the person she fell in love with. He’s a brittle, broken shell.

‘So that’s it?’ She sits up. ‘You’re just going to give up? Not content with serving your time you’re giving yourself a life sentence to go along with it?’

‘No, I—’