I desperately wanted to know who she was and yet I was terrified of finding out. I picked the phone up again and scrolled through the whole contacts list from the top. My heart stopped at Danny’s name. I thought about Danny apparently setting up the meeting for James. I stared at the number for a second. I didn’t recognise it; I was sure the last four digits were different from the one I’d had. For a second my finger hovered over the call button.

I moved resolutely on.

Finally – a number listed as ‘Angel’, with a London code. My hand shaking, I rang it. A girl answered, bored and foreign. ‘’Allo?’

‘Is this Katya’s house?’

There was a long pause. ‘Who is this?’ the girl asked in heavily accented English. ‘What do you know about Katya?’

‘Is Katya there?’ I persisted.

‘Fuck off,’ came the retort as she hung up.

I pulled on my jeans and slipped out of the flat, hailing the first taxi I saw. Arriving at the club, I asked the exotic doorgirl for Liam. With her tiny leather hotpants, glossy blonde bob and legs up to her armpits, she looked dubious about my casual clothes, my unmade-up face. I doubted she would know I was James’s wife, and I chose not to mention it now, but her eyes flickered uncertainly. She licked her pillowy lips and made a call.

‘Twice in one day,’ Liam tried to joke as he unclipped the red rope. ‘I’m honoured.’

‘No’, I said drily as I walked through, ‘you’re cornered.’

He took me upstairs to the VIP bar where he ordered us champagne cocktails until he saw me pull a face.

‘I’m not drinking, thanks. Bad for the brain. I’ll have a Diet Coke.’

He shrugged. ‘Your choice.’

‘You need to cut the crap, Liam,’ I said. ‘This is me, remember. Rose. And I’ve had enough of all the subterfuge. I need to know what the hell’s been going on.’

Wryly he looked at me. ‘Yes, you. Award-winning and all that jazz.’ He sighed. ‘OK. What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’ I swigged my Coke. ‘Money, girls, heroin, the lot.’

‘Heroin – first I’ve heard. Would swear on my mother’s life.’ Liam adored his mother. ‘Girls, James’s thing, not mine.’

‘But what kind of thing? He says Katya was a girlfriend. Lover.’

‘Not girlfriends, no. He loves you.’

‘That’s sweet, Liam, but we’ve gone beyond that point. He’s already admitted screwing her.’

‘Really?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Yes, really.’

‘It all comes down to money, I think.’

‘Money?’

Liam took a great swig of his drink, rubbed his head until his hair stood on end. ‘This is hard, Rose. This is utter shit.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘I feel like I’m grassing on my best mate.’

‘Well, don’t. To help James, I need to know the truth.’