But Ben wasn’t answering, landline or mobile, which I guessed was fair enough considering it was getting late on a Thursday night. Mel and I talked for another half hour about what had happened, drank more red wine, apologised to each other again. We talked about school, and work, and William and his certificate, and the weekend and going for a meal on Saturday night. I was beyond relieved to get everything back on an even keel. To get everything back to normal after what would go down as one of the weirdest days of my life.

When the wine bottle was empty, Mel yawned and headed upstairs and I filled the sink to do the washing-up. As I finished the dishes, I realised I hadn’t told her about Ben’s posts from my Facebook account. It was the one thing that didn’t quite make sense. It just didn’t seem to fit.

I stared at my reflection in the dark kitchen window.

Why would he have hijacked my account if everything Mel said was true?

FRIDAY

11

Period four on Friday was a free in my schedule and I had planned to spend it marking 7B’s homework on themes and ideas in The Coral Island. But I was tired, and it had been a tough week, and there was still a nagging feeling – like an itch I couldn’t scratch – about what had happened with Ben last night. I wanted to give him a ring, ask him why he’d put those messages on my Facebook account and could I have my phone back, please?

A part of me also wanted to apologise for what had happened and check that he was OK; it bothered me that he might have been hurt, and I wanted to put things straight. Just apologise to him, put it out there, say it, and move on. I didn’t want it to be more awkward than it had to be when we all got together at their next dinner party, or Sunday lunch, or whenever. Ben and I weren’t close; we really only knew each other through our wives, and most of my conversations with Ben were about football, the universal language invented so that men who didn’t know each other very well could still talk about something. We’d veered into politics once but we didn’t agree on much and I preferred not to listen to him bang on about public-sector waste and benefit cheats.

But still, it was important to Mel that we were all friends, and I wanted to make the effort for her.

I couldn’t ring Ben until later, at home, but I had my iPad with me. I took it out of my briefcase and opened Facebook. He hadn’t posted anything today, and the two weird posts he’d put up on my account yesterday were safely deleted. I scrolled idly through recent posts on his account: the woes of Sunderland Football Club; a photo of the speeding fine he’d got for going six miles an hour over the speed limit on the A40; a link to an Anchorman sketch from Saturday Night Live. Others about the state of the economy; Game of Thrones; a picture of the foundations being laid for the new summer house in his garden; techie subjects relating to his industry. Sunderland FC again.