‘Oww, shit!’ He’d sliced his index finger open on a razor-sharp potato peeler. ‘Shit!’ he said again.

Blood dripped onto the white marble work surface. He sucked his finger, slammed shut the self-close drawer and looked around the worktops. And noticed a large knife missing from the rack. Why the hell couldn’t she ever put anything back where it belonged? Not that he was obsessive, but he enjoyed cooking when he had the time and was always careful to keep everything in order.

More blood dripped onto the floor. He sucked his finger again, then gripped the bottle, placed the cap against the edge of the worktop and banged it hard with his left fist. The cap flew off and froth rose out of the neck of the bottle. He swigged it, then pulled out his cigarettes, lit one with the lighter from his pocket, grabbed a saucer from the drying rack for an ashtray and sat on a high stool at the island breakfast bar unit.

Eden didn’t like him smoking indoors, but to hell with that right now. If she didn’t like it, she could walk into the room and tell him.

He sucked his finger again, tasting the coppery blood and wracking his brain. Stood up and went over to the pine Welsh dresser, the one antique in this room, where their best crockery was stored behind the glass doors, and glanced down at a framed photograph of the two of them on their honeymoon in the Maldives, in better financial times. They’d paid the resort’s photographer to take a series of photos of them and this one had been their favourite. Eden in a pink sundress and himself in a navy-blue T-shirt and shorts, holding hands and running along the sand at the water’s edge. She looked pretty damn gorgeous and he looked bloody handsome. The perfect couple.

Once upon a time.

Next to it sat the leather-bound address book with their initials embossed on the front in gold, a wedding present from someone – he had forgotten who. Despite Eden’s expertise in computer technology, she’d always insisted on keeping the names and addresses of all their friends and relatives – and tradespeople – in this book. Glad about that now, he picked it up, carried it back over to the breakfast bar, sat, took a drag on his cigarette, another swig of his beer, and began thumbing through the book. Thinking.

She had four really close friends. Close as hell. In the last couple of years, since their disagreements had become more and more frequent, he was sure she’d started turning all of them against him – he could tell, he wasn’t an idiot. Always a slight frostiness when he met any of them.

In the morning, if she still hadn’t turned up, he would call them. And her mother. Her sister. And anyone else he could think of. But he was pretty sure she’d be home sometime soon. Totally trolleyed and apologetic, like the last time she’d done this to him.