‘But instead you handed him to us on a plate. It’s a lot easier to suffocate a man when he’s unconscious, believe me.’

She said it in a matter-of-fact way, as if she was talking about the weather.

‘And then you planted evidence in the boot of my car,’ I said. ‘Suspicious searches on my phone. Planted my phone at the country park.’ I shook my head. ‘This is so screwed up it’s unbelievable.’

Beth laughed.

‘It’s completely believable, that’s the whole point! Cuckolded husband takes revenge on wife’s lover – it’s been happening for thousands of years. And the more you acted like nothing had happened to him, the more guilty you appeared to the police.’

‘I was the fall guy, all along.’

‘And a convincing fall guy needs convincing motivation.’

‘The pictures on that mobile phone, the naked selfies of Mel – what about them?’

My wife said: ‘A very busy Saturday morning while you were out doing pools and parties with Wills.’

I knew the answer to my next question, but I had to ask it anyway.

‘So there was never any affair between you and Ben?’

‘He’s not her type,’ Beth cut in. ‘She told you that on Sunday.’

I was silent for a moment, trying to take it all in. Trying to make sense of my emotions. Disbelief. Anger.

Heartbreak.

‘How could you do this?’ I said to Mel, quietly.

She said nothing.

‘We didn’t have any choice,’ Beth answered for her.

It was clear that she was in charge. She was the alpha female and Mel, my confident, outgoing wife, was the beta. Just like her mum, Mel had ended up in thrall to a dominant, controlling personality, pulled along in her slipstream. Beth was calling the shots – serene Beth, the shy other half who had always seemed to be in Ben’s shadow. Not any more. Now she was the boss. Maybe for the first time in her life.

‘I was asking my wife,’ I said.

Mel looked away from me.

‘Mel?’ I said again.

‘We have to protect what we’ve got,’ she said, looking at the floor.

‘And what’s that?’

‘Each other.’

‘And that’s worth committing murder for, is it?’

Beth cut in, her voice hard.

‘Absolutely.’

The last time I had seen them in the same room, one had been screaming obscenities and the other crying. More lies, all for my benefit – and for our friends and dozens of customers who could testify to the ferocity of a hatred between spurned wife and secret lover.

‘How long?’ I said.

‘What?’ Beth said.

‘You two. How long?’

‘Does it matter? What’s important is that we lost each other for too many years, and then we found each other again.’

‘You had a fling when you were fifteen, the two of you.’

‘You spoke to Mark Ruddington, then.’