Ben had always maintained he was a tough comprehensive-school kid through and through. It was part of his backstory, part of his northern-lad-taking-on-southern-softies persona. But it seemed that this – along with much else that I had learned in the last few days – was another fiction. The truth was private school and prefect badges and expensive holidays all over the world.

Beth returned to the study holding a glass of red wine and a china cup and saucer. She handed me the cup of tea and planted herself on the leather sofa, raising the glass.

‘Cheers,’ she said without a trace of mirth. ‘To marriage.’

I took a sip of the tea and pointed to the pictures on the wall.

‘Is this Ben? I thought he went to the local comp?’

‘God, no,’ she said. ‘His parents sent him private from the age of five. His father was the MD of a big shipping company. Loaded.’

‘But he always said . . . you know, about being the poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks. He said he was the son of a shipyard worker, not that his dad was the boss.’

She shrugged.

‘That’s Ben. It’s just his way. You stop noticing it after a while.’

The fact that he had made stuff up about his working-class upbringing didn’t actually surprise me: it was becoming apparent that he was one of the biggest bullshitters I had ever met. It was disconcerting to be confronted with it face-to-face, but it also fitted with what I had learned since the weekend.

The truth of the battle is whatever the victor deems it to be.

That pretty much summed him up. Truth was changeable to Ben, malleable, to be shaped in whatever way he wanted. So he could get what he wanted.

I pointed to a picture of Alice at the end of the row of frames.

‘How’s Alice doing, by the way?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘How much have you told her?’

‘I never need to tell her much, as far as her dad’s concerned. She picks up most of it on her own. She’s actually better than me now at picking up on his moods and his little jokes. They copy each other’s little phrases and habits, you know. The slang and the textspeak and abbreviations.’ She smiled, but it faded quickly. ‘Sometimes it’s scary how alike they are – Alice is very much her father’s daughter. I’ve just told her that her dad’s gone away for a few days.’

‘She must be missing him,’ I said.

She paused, the glass frozen inches from her lips, her eyes fixed on mine.

‘I can assure you that Alice is quite innocent in all of this,’ she said slowly, carefully, her gaze steady. ‘Alice has nothing to do with it. Any of it.’

‘Of course. Absolutely. I didn’t mean to suggest anything else.’