He wouldn’t look at her. ‘It’s… it’s just a fetish site. For people who want to act out their fantasies. It’s all between consenting adults, and although it may seem weird, they’re not doing any harm.’

Sara was so incensed she couldn’t speak.

Fortunately, Hailey didn’t have the same problem. ‘Oh come on! You don’t believe that, do you?’ The scorn in her voice would have stripped paint. ‘That makes it all sound okay, doesn’t it? Instead of your wife being sexually abused for money – a business transaction that you were involved in facilitating – you’re saying she made herself unconscious after inviting two strange men to molest her?’ Her voice finished an octave higher and a few decibels louder than when she’d started.

As usual, Hailey had gone straight to the heart of the matter, and hearing it summarised so clearly turned it from a theory into reality. But it was a hollow victory. Hurt and shame and disbelief surged through Sara in quick succession, an almost overwhelming blast of emotions that exploded in a fury like she’d never known before.

‘You make me sick!’ she yelled, hands flying in the air. ‘How the hell did you get involved in this? And how can you not see what’s really going on here? Talk about deluded!’

Hailey put more pressure on Matt’s arm, and he squealed. ‘Answer her,’ she said, teeth gritted, ‘because I’d really like to know too.’

There were tears in his eyes now, but Sara didn’t care how much Hailey was hurting him. It was nothing compared to the damage he’d allowed to be done to her, his own wife.

‘Okay, okay, I’ll tell you everything I know. Just… let’s calm down.’ He whimpered until Hailey loosened her grip a little, then began to speak. ‘It was just after I’d lost my job. I got an email asking if I’d like to help design a secret erotic website for a closed group of friends.’ He swallowed, eyes on the floor. ‘It sounded okay – maybe a little dodgy – but they assured me it wasn’t illegal, just a fetish they shared that they wanted to keep private. They were all in high-calibre jobs, and if it went public, their reputations and careers would suffer. I honestly took it at face value. I didn’t need to know what they were going to put on the site, and they assured me it was only between consenting adults. Like a dating site for people with matching fetishes.’ He ran his tongue round his lips again, a nervous habit Sara knew well. ‘I thought it was, you know, a bit weird, but whatever floats your boat. Who am I to judge? I’m just the tech guy, the architect. And I needed the work, didn’t I? To keep our family going. So I agreed.’