He knew beyond doubt now that he shouldn’t have told her, and he couldn’t remember why he had, only that perhaps in his wretchedness he’d needed to smash something, and his own life with Katelin had been the first thing to hand. But then she’d pronounced his fate, which was to remain together, building something new from the ashes, and although his heart was bruised and his soul defeated, and although many were the times he wanted to pack his old holdall and walk away, he knew the very least he could do for Katelin now was to let her have her way, dictate her terms. So he took his punishment. He listened to her again (and again and again), and when she asked was it over, were they in touch, did he still have feelings for Ali Connor, Dan said yes, and no, and no, and only this last answer was a lie, but he hoped that as the silence between him and Alison lengthened, the certainty that he would always love her might begin to diminish. The angry disappointment he’d once felt towards her – always a rather manufactured thing – had dissipated entirely a long time ago, to make way for something more dreadful: a kind of bleak acceptance that perfect happiness was now beyond his reach.

‘So, you’re the walking cliché,’ Katelin said in a bistro in New Town in June, on the anniversary of the date they’d first met in Bogotá; her idea, not his. ‘And I’m the original one in this partnership, because I’ve refused to revert to stereotype and make you leave. I’ll always think you’re a selfish bastard to do as you did, but I’m keeping you, for better or for worse.’

A strange toast with which to affirm their Brave New Partnership, but Dan kept his expression neutral, and wondered if Michael McCormack was as relentless as Katelin at turning acceptance into a cruel and unusual form of punishment. He probably was, if his lone email four months ago was anything to go by, his absurd Victorian posturing at the assault on his property. Your contemptible and predatory attempt at plundering my life has ended in abject failure, and although my marriage has been wounded, I will never give you the satisfaction of letting it fail. Find another online playmate – my wife has permanently withdrawn from your toxic influence. Dan had typed Fuck you, McCormack but hadn’t sent it, just left it there as a draft, gathering cyber dust, while he decided whether no response was more annoying and effective than an offensive one.

‘I didn’t want to marry you, for exactly this reason,’ Katelin went on. ‘I never wanted us to be held together only by paperwork and by not being able to face the hassle and expense of divorce.’