On Monday morning I took the children into school, valiantly ignoring the stares and whispers. Only Holly’s mother Karen, who’d been at the party, asked if I was all right. The rest just stared, po-faced, beady-eyed – and I had the horrible feeling they were glad; that they felt I deserved it. We had always been outsiders, however ‘cool’ they thought we were, they didn’t really like us. They didn’t like our success, hated the fact I’d kept myself apart. But I hadn’t isolated myself for the reasons that they suspected. I was just wary of getting close to them; to people who would see the cracks beneath the façade of my life.

When I got home, a car was waiting in the drive, a small dark woman leaning against it in an efficient grey suit. Too efficient to be a journalist.

‘Mrs Miller?’

‘Yep.’ I went to unlock the front door.

‘You need to come with me, please.’

‘Are you arresting me too?’ I swung to face her.

‘Not unless you want me to,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Or you think there’s a reason I should?’

At the police station they kept on and on about James’s recent movements. I was torn between explaining that I rarely knew what he was up to at the best of times, and playing the loyal wife. I plumped for the latter, but I could sense it was to little effect, mainly because I didn’t have the answers they wanted.

‘You live an extremely comfortable life, don’t you, Mrs Miller?’

‘We’ve worked very hard for it.’

‘Really?’ She looked disbelieving. ‘I thought you were a stay-at-home mum.’

I stared at her. How in this day and age could one woman look at another with such disdain? What happened to the sisterhood?

‘I am a “stay-at-home mum,” yes. At the moment. Apart from the one day I do at the Chronicle. But I was an extremely career-driven journalist before I had my first child six years ago. I had a weekly column; I did a lot of radio. I was doing well, financially.’

‘So you don’t work? Not really.’

‘Not really, no,’ I said wearily.

‘But still you live in a beautiful and costly home, you drive top-end cars, you employ a cleaner, your children go to private school—’

‘I drive a five-year-old Passat. Alicia goes to the village primary. The twins go to a nursery that we pay for, yes. But it’s hardly Eton.’

‘You have expensive foreign holidays, your clothes are—’

‘Sorry,’ I interrupted, ‘but what exactly are you getting at? My husband set up a record label in the nineties that does extremely well. He also produces artists who are multimillionaires themselves. You might even have heard of some of them.’

‘Might I?’ Her smile was false. ‘Enlighten me.’