So that was how it had turned. Her death wasn’t the result of ambition or money. Like so many others in our shattered land, she had just wanted out. But they had put a wall up around us, to protect our new state, and he had been her only way through it. So subtle, she had been.

‘It wasn’t,’ he said, tears rolling down his cheeks.

I had to know. ‘What did you do?’ He didn’t reply. ‘Charles? What did you do to her?’

And then he spoke. ‘I … tried to get it out of her.’

My eyes closed and I felt sick. Those final minutes she had lived through in immeasurable pain. I couldn’t help but picture them.

There had been something in her Champagne, yes. Charles had put it there to take away a child he thought was another man’s.

He lowered his arm and looked at me. Wet streaks on his skin reflected the light. ‘Please,’ he said, reaching out a hand. ‘Please.’ His hands were open, the palms up, begging for understanding.

I had to get away from him, to dispel the image of the pain that had racked her. I knocked his hands away and grasped the mantelpiece, pulling myself to my feet, but my limbs were hardly working and I twisted my ankle. And then I was on my front with his knee on my spine, pinning me to the floor. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Stop!’ And a grey mist came down, as if my mind wanted to blot out what was happening. I struggled but his weight was too much for me. Pressing me down.

I tried to think of something to tell him, to convince him to let me go. ‘I’ll help you,’ I said desperately. ‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’ And he paused, listening. ‘Did she drink too much of it?’

He stayed there, unmoving. I waited, hearing his lungs wheeze, until his voice wheedled like a child’s. ‘I didn’t want that,’ he said. ‘I didn’t.’

‘I know! I’ll tell them that.’ If he would just accept it could be true. ‘Charles, I’m on your side.’ A hesitation, and then he pulled up, just a little.

‘Will you?’

‘I’ll tell them what you told me. Just an accident.’ And, with another tiny move, almost imperceptible, his weight shifted away from the knee on my back.

I could feel the situation changing, moving my way, safety in sight. ‘I can go –’

But, as I said it, something broke in: a sudden insistent sound from downstairs. The brass knocker on the front door was clacking, ringing through the hollow dark hallway.

‘Hello?’ a man’s loud voice called from outside. I had no idea who it was – the postman with a package or a neighbour calling around. I just prayed it was something they wouldn’t let go.