‘Oh?’ I put a plate of slightly singed macaroni cheese in front of him, which he ignored, flicking the television on. ‘Get us a beer, petal, would you?’

‘Why Vietnam?’ I opened the fridge.

‘To talk about opening a branch of the club out there. Saigon’s the new Bangkok, didn’t you know?’ He wasn’t looking at me, but at the screen behind me. ‘Oh, goal!’

‘Right,’ I said, handing him a Becks. I picked up the salad and plonked it on the long kitchen table. ‘Stay with me, J, will you?’ I could tell he was itching to return to the studio but he did as I asked, forlornly abandoning his Sight and Sound magazine and taking his feet off the table.

‘You know, it’s funny.’ Carefully I stuck my fork prong through a macaroni tube and cast a quick look from under my lashes at my husband. ‘I’m probably going mad, but I suddenly thought I saw you out at Hadi Kattan’s today?’

‘You didn’t.’ He shovelled a bit of pasta into his mouth and pulled a face. ‘Christ, Rosie! This macaroni’s all crunchy.’

‘Yes, well,’ I jabbed at it, ‘it might not be one of my absolutely best efforts. Have some salad.’

‘It never is a best effort.’ He pushed the bowl away. ‘I hate bloody rabbit food, you know that.’

‘It’s good for you,’ I said mildly. ‘I’m sure I saw you there when I went to get the car, you know.’

‘You didn’t, darling, really.’ James leaned over and kissed my cheek, and slowly I began to relax a little. I was about to tell him about the man up at Albion Manor, about my disquiet and the violence and whether I should report it to someone, when James stood, putting his plate in the sink. ‘I’m not very hungry, actually. I had a burger in Oxford earlier.’

‘Oxford?’ I said warily.

‘I had to go to the bank.’

‘Oh?’ Our avoidance of the place was unspoken – but we’d never once visited the small city since we’d moved out here.

‘Yeah, it couldn’t wait.’ Was it my imagination or did he look a little sheepish? ‘I just shot in and out again.’

‘Everything all right?’ I abandoned the macaroni myself now and attacked the lettuce instead. I pushed thoughts of Society X away; they were already too near the surface.

‘Of course, petal. Never better.’

‘And you definitely weren’t up at Albion Manor earlier?’

‘Rose!’

I recognised the warning signs; I raised my hands in supplication. ‘OK, OK. I just thought, I could have sworn it was your car.’

‘Everybody’s driving silver Audis now. Where one leads, the others follow, eh, Rosie? Actually that reminds me. Have you seen the Beamer catalogue around?’

‘Probably in that pile.’