I log onto the Costa free Wi-Fi as Jane Smith with a [email protected] email address. I read through Monica’s messages, which are mainly from mutual friends who think they went to school with me and made-up Monica. Keely Jacobs asks if Monica is Caroline’s friend and if they’re doing this together. Paul Barrett wonders if Monica was there that night Jack slept with his sister as he’s never been able to get him to admit it and he needs a witness. Some very anti-Jack sentiments are being expressed here. Anyone would think you were a serial liar.

I grab the USB from my bag and connect it to the laptop, scrolling through the pictures. I stop at Julie Carson. Something about her has been bugging me since I saw the diary. She always got on my nerves, in any case. One of your work colleagues, so neat and pristine.

Julie had cropped blonde hair even then. She was compact in every way and always wore indigo jeans and bright white blouses. She had natural class and married the head architect at Johnson Weaver, Francis Carson. But you had to have her. I remember the Christmas party when I was wearing a deep-cut scarlet ball gown and every man in the room had eyes for me.

Except you. While they gazed at me, a curvy, come-hither blonde with a hint of Marilyn Monroe, your eyes followed Julie around the dancefloor. I swear I even saw you lick your lips as she passed within feet. And she knew. I could always tell when they knew. It was a self-satisfied smirk and lowering of the eyes around you.

She was focused on her husband, which made you sit up and beg even more. What was this? A woman who didn’t yield to Jack Atkinson’s charm? Of course, back then I just ignored it; I thought Julie was happy with Francis and that she wouldn’t respond to the side glances and the casual touches at the bar.

In fact, I hadn’t realised that she was one of your conquests until I saw the journal. Until I saw the pictures of you together in Paris. They were fixed into the journal with Sellotape and I only realised when I was removing them to scan them that some had more pictures taped below. I look at them now, a series of scenes around the Louvre and various cafés, you and Julie kissing – you really got the hang of selfies way before they were invented. Photos of you both at Giverny, gazing at Monet’s garden. Then some blurry shots I can’t make out until I look closely and see that they are of the top of a cropped blonde head and your brown brogues are in the background either side.