‘No, why would he?’ she asks. Then her face changes. Her eyes open wide and her mouth wobbles. She knows why; Robin started to ask her the day before. ‘Who was she?’ she asks, voice quivering with barely contained emotion.

‘We don’t know, Mrs Miller. Do you have any ideas?’

‘No. No, I don’t. He never… There was no…’ Her hands flap weakly and she starts to wail, ‘How could he? How could he do this to me?’ She looks up at Robin, red-rimmed eyes watery. ‘I didn’t know. But they all say that, don’t they, the wives? You must think me so stupid.’

‘I don’t think that at all, Mrs Miller. I’m sorry.’

They’ve reached the reception now, and she turns and walks away from him. Head down, she pushes out of the double doors, back into the grey autumn day.

He so hadn’t wanted to be the one to confirm the affair. But her reaction spoke volumes. The uncontrolled emotion. A sudden burst of disbelief. So she hadn’t known, Robin thinks, watching her go. One less motive to consider.

9

Freya wakes early with a banging headache and a churning in her stomach that she puts down to part hangover, part nerves. She can’t face breakfast, but forces herself to eat a slice of toast, the pieces feeling like sawdust in her mouth.

She’s already texted Butler, his curt reply lessening her guilty feelings for lying about her absence. But hangover aside, she knows she has something more important to do today.

She showers, puts on jeans and a jumper, then gets in her car. She drives the twenty minutes down the road, to the house she only visited yesterday for the first time.

In her darker moments, when Jon wasn’t returning her texts, or when she knew he was spending time with Amy, she’d imagine them together. She’d had a picture in her head of what their house looked like, and she’d torture herself imagining Jon with her, doing the everyday things that she yearned to do.

And she’d imagined herself walking up to their front door, ringing the bell, then confronting Amy.

I’m Freya, she’d say. And I love your husband.

But she never had. And now he’s dead.

Today, she sits and waits. She’s insignificant, ignored. She’s parked around the corner in the next street: far enough away that she won’t be noticed by the wife, but close enough so she can still see the house. She knows the white Audi parked in the driveway is Amy’s, and she also knows that Mrs Miller has an appointment at the police station at ten. An interview that Robin will have to do alone, because she is here. Watching, waiting.