Ben looked at me incredulously. ‘Don’t do anything stupid? I’ve already done the stupidest thing I could ever have done, which is let you into my life.’

He paused and took a step towards me, his expression setting hard again and his knuckles white, as he tightened his grip on the shaft of the knife.

‘You’ve destroyed me. You’ve destroyed my family … you even killed my dad!’ His voice cracked in pain as he spoke and his face crumpled as tears began to roll down his cheeks.

My stomach lurched slightly at his words and I swallowed hard and forced myself to meet his eye. ‘Listen, Ben,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘You’re not thinking straight. I know you’re upset but you’re wrong. I didn’t kill Peter! He had a heart attack …’

‘He had a heart attack because of what you did to him!’ Ben’s words were hissed through gritted teeth and he seemed to be working himself up into a frenzy.

Again, I felt a ripple of unease. There was something about the way he said it that made me think he had been speaking to someone. But who? No one knew the truth except Leo, and I was fairly sure he wouldn’t have been speaking to him. He would have no way of contacting him. I took another step backwards, and felt the crunch of glass under my shoe, as I stepped onto one of the shards from the broken champagne bottle.

‘You’ve taken everything away from me,’ Ben continued, now weeping openly. ‘I left my mum in pieces tonight to come racing back here for you because I stupidly thought it might make you appreciate me for once. Even after everything you’ve done … all the lies, the cheating, the violence …’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Even after everything you’ve done to me, I was still hoping we might be able to salvage our relationship. For Elodie’s sake.’

‘We can, Ben, of course we can …’ I started to say, but he put his other hand up to silence me.

‘No! We can’t. I should have known it was just another of your sick little games. God, I’ve been such an idiot letting you wreck my life!’ He swiped away the tears from his face. ‘Letting you wreck my family’s lives … Well, I’ve had enough. I’ve taken Elodie and I’m leaving you.’

My heart thudded in my chest and I looked around me in panic. It was only now that it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen her. ‘Where is she? Where’s Elodie?’ My throat had dried and I struggled to speak. What if he’d harmed her to get back at me? The sensible part of my brain told me that he would never hurt her but I had never seen Ben like this before. He was unstable enough to have got a knife from the kitchen, which was unimaginable in itself. What if he’d used it on Elodie? My legs felt weak and I let out a whimper of pure fear. ‘What have you done to her?’ I whispered, shaking my head, as I willed him to tell me she was OK.