‘Yeah, definitely,’ Sarah said. ‘One of us will be, for sure.’

He was taking Himari out after her late shift to mark Valentine’s Day, a day late. Sarah, Biddy and I had spent ours together at the dining room table, plotting and hypothesising.

‘Can we play chasey?’ Oliver said, tugging at Kyle’s arm.

‘And hide-and-seek?’ Sophie said, looking up at him. ‘Our friend Zac loves it.’

‘We better go,’ I said, looking at my watch. ‘Thanks so much for doing this, mate.’

‘No worries,’ he said. ‘Sorry I haven’t seen you guys for so long.’

I hugged him, crouched down, hugged Oliver and Sophie.

‘Be good kids for Kyle,’ Sarah said, crouching, hugging. ‘Love you.’ She looked great, smelt great, was wearing the silk scarf I’d bought her – to hide Jack’s handiwork, mainly, but it suited her all the same. We had to –

I looked at my watch, 7.23 pm. The Green was less than a ten-minute bike ride away but, fucking come on, hurry the fuck up. I checked the manila envelope was still in my bag, wheeled my bike from the hallway – hurry up – waited outside for Sarah to emerge with hers. We rode – ya! – Sarah in my slipstream, then alongside each other, made it over the train tracks just as the boom gates started descending. Being out on our bikes together was a rare occurrence these days, but we’d ridden round Paris once, picnicked by the Seine. We should relax, enjoy ourselves, make the most of … How could we?

She drew alongside me again. ‘Can you slow down a bit, hun?’

‘Not really, no.’

Zac had furnished me with at least 90 per cent of my intelligence on Sarah’s sex life since we’d opened our marriage. I’d discussed less than 10 per cent of it with Sarah. More than 90 per cent of what we thought we knew about Zac was a lie. Sarah had lied about using condoms with at least 90 per cent of her lovers. Jack the Dom, ironically enough, was a stickler for protected sex – according to Zac. I was nearly 100 per cent sure I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

‘Shit.’ I gripped the brakes. ‘Do you have any cash?’

‘Just my card,’ Sarah said, gripping hers.

‘The Green only takes cash.’ My heartbeat, temples, boom, boom, boom …

‘Calm down, Chris. Remember those breathing exercises. The supermarket’s just there. I’ll get cash out.’

She was good in a crisis, and this was a crisis, all of it. We were in full-time crisis mode.

‘Watch the bikes,’ I said. ‘I’ll go in.’