They were talking about her as though she wasn’t there again. She watched them all, as the hands gesticulated towards her, helpfully pregnant a second time to demonstrate the extent of the crime. She’d been so much younger than these people when she’d known them that she’d shut up and listened when they talked and talked, impressed by their words and their passion. She saw them now, frayed, middle-aged and flustered, people who’d never held down a job, raised a kid, had managed to coast through to their forties and even fifties on outrage and vim, untroubled by any real responsibility. Mark – Michael – whatever his name was, had recognized them for the squabbling children they were at the time. That’s why he’d found it so easy. Of course he was a police officer. Of course he was. She saw it clearly now. They all flapped their hands about as they talked, the voices rising shrill, changing nothing, and she felt so very, very tired. Couldn’t she just find him, go up to him and punch him in the face? Would that be enough? Could she turn up on his doorstep with pictures of Debbie and hand them to his wife? Something like a bomb, a grenade, some sort of violence on his home? Something exploding in the middle of his life? What would make her stop feeling like this?

She would need to see it, she realized that. To feel normal again she would need to watch his face. She wanted to see it dawning that his life had been ruined, and that she had done it. She wanted to be holding his face in her hands while it happened, pushing her nails into his skin.

She’d had enough of them. She slipped her huge self off the bar stool and stood there for a second, in the middle of their circle, holding up a hand until their talk and talk and talk dried up.

‘OK. We’re going to be methodical about this. You all need to calm down and we’re going to draw up a plan of action. First thing we need to do: get proof. Nah, not hearing it, Gaz.’

She raised her hand higher and he stopped. This was good. This felt like having control again. ‘Think about Mark. Really think about him. You know he was police. Of course you do. So, we just need to get proof. After that, you’re going to get straight on to your journalist mates, Clio. They won’t publish anything without checking with their legal team, but they’ll be able to get something in motion. And we’re going to need a lawyer.’

They all looked flummoxed, again.