Contempt.

Jealousy.

Hate.

Mel said: ‘He once asked me what might happen between me and him if you weren’t in the picture any more. As in, whether I’d get together with anyone else.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘That he should stop being stupid. That you were the best, kindest, loveliest man I’d ever met, and that I loved you and that was it.’

‘Did he ever say anything else about me?’

‘He used to say, “There’s no one as blind as the person who refuses to see”, or something like that.’

The phrase rang a bell.

‘He said that to me on Thursday evening too. What did he mean?’

She shrugged, looked away.

‘That . . . you could never see it. The way he looked at me, talked to me when we were all together. It didn’t seem to register with you, like you couldn’t believe anyone would ever do that.’

‘I’m not blind,’ I said. ‘I just happen to trust my wife.’

‘Are you angry with me, Joe?’

My emotions were all over the place, but there was no anger – at least not for my wife. It had already passed. I just felt sorry for her.

‘Come here,’ I said, and folded her in my arms.

She apologised again and I hugged her tight, her breath warm on my ear.

‘Those Facebook posts make more sense now,’ I said.

We never know how little we deserve what we have until it is taken away from us.

‘I didn’t want you talking to some policeman without knowing all the background. Can you forgive me?’

I kissed her on the forehead.

‘Of course. I love you.’

‘Love you too.’

We sat like that for a few minutes, holding each other, Mel clinging to me like she never wanted to let me go. My arms around her, comforting her.

‘We should make that call,’ I said eventually. ‘Are you going to tell the police all of this?’

‘Yes, but you had to hear it from me first.’ She looked up. ‘Wait – do we have to tell the police everything?’

‘I think we should.’

‘Oh.’

‘What is it?’

‘The thing I said to Beth about you reversing into Ben’s car. If she finds out I lied about it, that I lied to her . . . I don’t know what she’ll think. I’d be mortified.’

I looked at her. She looked tired out from her confession. Small and vulnerable and ashamed of what she’d done. I kissed her eyebrow.

‘I’m sure we don’t need to go into absolutely every last detail.’

The phone number on the business card Beth had passed on connected me to an answering machine at Kilburn Police Station. I left a message and went downstairs to the lounge, where William was emptying out his baskets of toy cars one by one. We spent the next hour arranging them in long lines, according to colour. Silver was the winner. Silver was always the winner. Each row of cars had a lane in front of it and William then drove his police cars and fire engines up and down the lanes, responding to imaginary accidents and chasing bad men. The bad men always drove a battered black Renault with only three wheels, for some reason I had never worked out.