‘And?’

‘He’s staying at a hotel near Brent Cross.’

‘The Premier Inn from Thursday night? Did you go and see him?’

She shook her head.

‘We just talked.’

‘What about?’

‘Listen, I know it probably doesn’t make any difference now, and there’s no reason for you to believe me.’ She looked me in the eye for the first time since we’d got home. ‘But I want you to know something.’

‘Go on.’

‘It was over between us.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I met Ben on Thursday night to end it. For good.’

24

‘Bullshit,’ I said, the word hot in my throat.

‘It’s true.’

‘I told you, no more lies.’

‘I swear to you, on my life.’ She plucked a tissue from a box on the bedside cabinet and blew her nose. A stray thought popped into my head. I used to love the way she blew her nose. I would tease her about it, that she was dainty like a duchess. Like she didn’t want to wake the baby, even before there was a baby. I used to love everything about her. Now the thought just gave me a painful feeling in my chest, for all the things that had been lost between us. Maybe forever.

‘That’s why Ben was so angry when you were talking to him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you want to break it off?’ I said, my voice quiet now.

‘I’d been trying to finish it for weeks. I’d already tried two or three times before, but he never got the message. He said we were meant to be together, that we should do what we felt was right and forget anything else. And he’d keep right on texting and emailing me, not leaving it alone, not taking no for an answer.’

‘So basically you got bored with him, too?’

Her face crumpled and I regretted asking the question.

‘The guilt got too much,’ she said. ‘It was like gorging yourself on chocolate cake, and you know you shouldn’t but you just can’t stop. Sooner or later you realise that you have to quit because it’s no way to live your life. It’s fantastic for an hour, or a day, or a week, but you can’t sustain it for a lifetime. Deep down I knew it, even right at the beginning when we first got together. And I couldn’t bear the thought of what it would do to Beth, or the thought of explaining it to William.’

‘And me?’

‘Or explaining it to you.’ She raised her hands. ‘Either of you, but you most of all.’

‘So what happened on Thursday?’

‘I agreed to meet him, not at his house but a neutral venue instead. A hotel.’

‘And did he get the message this time?’

‘Oh yes. I’m pretty sure he got the message.’

A cold feeling crawled down my spine.

‘Why? What was different this time?’

‘I . . . told him some things. Made some things up, about you and me. I said you’d got suspicious about us, you’d found my phone bill and you were asking all kinds of questions.’