If you did, I never noticed. You never mentioned it and I never found out what happened. We went out to dinner and you were my Jack again. And yes, it did occur to me to just ask you. I’m a psychologist. I know all about Pavlov’s dog. How you offer the reward and ring the bell. Well, I was Jack’s bitch. You’d conditioned me not to ask awkward questions by completely switching off when I did. Then, when I stopped, you’d be the best husband in the world. Good girl, Caro. Good girl.

I swig the blackcurrant vodka and suddenly realise that I can find out all the things I desperately wanted to ask. Right now. I open the journal again and turn back, right to the beginning. There she is. More than a page. Christine Dearden. Eight out of ten. A couple of hotel receipts. I run my fingers over the Ibis receipt. Room 252. Then she’d moved to the Hilton just around the corner. Paid for by Jack.

Panic. She didn’t work for Energy Logistics at all. She didn’t work with you. So why was she in your offices? I slam the journal closed. I’m woozy, but not in a nice way. Vodka usually mellows me, but this is one of those nights. I just know it. I pack everything away and push it under the sink.

Of course she didn’t work with you. I’d seen her in your offices and drawn that conclusion myself when you’d lied. Thinking on your feet, as you called it when you lied about other things. She was in your office to meet you. She was known there. They’d just let her in. My God. They probably thought that she was me. Your wife. My vodka-addled brain is trying to work out how, if they thought Christine was me, had you explained all the others in the Journal?

For some reason, I’d imagined – still imagine even now – that not everyone knew about these women. That you’d kept this big secret from me and everyone else. Otherwise, how could you have defended yourself so publicly? And how could everyone we knew have believed your shit about me being crazy?

Now, as I’m nearly vodka blind, I’m laughing. This was no secret. The only person who didn’t know about it was me. All the office parties I’d attended with you, the dutiful wife, everyone there had known. All the nights out with friends. They’d all known, too. They’d probably spent time with these other women.

I glug down a couple of mouthfuls of the vodka and wait for the sweet release of nothingness to close over me.

Chapter Three