I’m absolutely livid. I want to go round there and shake her, tell her that Charlie is my son and she had no right. Worse than that. But I know right from wrong. Of course I do. No one must get hurt. Not physically. No.

So I grab a brown real-hair wig that I bought for a fancy dress and some glasses and drive for an hour until I’m in Huddersfield. I’m getting into this playlist thing, like High Fidelity, but mine’s not a top five because there are so many about cheating bastards who treat women badly. My song of choice today from the comprehensive bastard playlist I made is ‘The Snake’ by Al Wilson. A classic. And so appropriate. I Google an exotic pets shop and park up. Half an hour later I’m the owner of a cardboard box full of crickets and ten tiny mice – perfect snake food. I always knew my father’s love of reptiles and his ceaseless dialogue about them would come in handy one day.

I park up a good walk from The Tea Cosy. I check the wig and the glasses in the rear-view. I’m still shaking with temper when I rock up to the counter. I join the queue and look for my opportunity.

The shop is so fucking twee and the furniture isn’t even proper vintage, just replica. It’s full of retired people, which suits me just fine as they’re the worst complainers. I check out the exit to the toilet and then suddenly I’m at the front of the queue and face to face with Frances.

In real life she’s beige. No make-up, hair scraped back and an off-white pinny. She looks happy and confident and I want to slap her. But I don’t because I’m not that kind of person. Tears well up, temper tears, and when she asks me what I would like I stare up at the board.

I choose a bacon and cheese toasty. I’d already seen her go through to a tiny kitchen to get some toast, so she would be gone a while. As soon as she is safely in the kitchen, I unzip my tote bag and pull out the box of crickets. I empty them into the side of the curved glass panelled counter, right into the cake section. Some of them fall down the slats in the refrigerated shelf, but some of them are already climbing on the white fresh cream.

I turn and check that no one is watching and they aren’t. Everyone is concentrating on their cream teas. So I go to the toilets, which are very country fucking pretty, and release the tiny mice. The toilets are sealed and there’s nowhere for them to go, so they run around in the cubical. Perfect.