‘It’s all right, you can tell me,’ Robyn assured her. ‘I know it’s something terrible. I know there’s this woman he’s been seeing on the sly. A very young woman, by the looks of things, too, maybe even a student. But I don’t know the details.’ She gritted her teeth, cringing to find herself in this predicament. She and Beth had once run a stall at the school Christmas fair together, and they’d exchanged chit-chat at university social events or in the school playground, but that had been their limit. Until now. ‘I feel really embarrassed to be asking you, and I’m sorry if this makes you feel awkward or . . . or on the spot,’ she went on. ‘But John’s been . . .’ She swallowed, lowering her gaze. ‘He’s been lying to me about this, all along, and I just want to hear the truth now. However awful it may be.’

Beth nodded gravely. She was a tall, rather horsey woman with a mid-length brown bob, pinned back with a clip. The sort who had been head girl once upon a time, no doubt, form captain, sports prefect. Maybe all of those things. But at least she was kind enough not to kick a person who was down, so she didn’t pretend not to know what Robyn was talking about. ‘Okay. Well, from what I can gather, there was something of a cheating scandal this summer in terms of the second-year exams,’ she began slowly, and Robyn’s ears pricked up, remembering having vaguely heard something about this herself. ‘The students suspected of cheating were questioned, and allegations were made about John – namely, that he had supplied copies of the exam papers to one of the undergraduates, who went about selling them for a profit.’

Ka-boom. Robyn hadn’t seen that coming. Give him his credit, her husband still knew how to surprise her. ‘Oh God,’ she croaked, twisting her hands together.

‘The student in question is a rather attractive young woman called Naomi Ellis,’ Beth went on, with an apprehensive glance across at Robyn, as if she really didn’t want to say the next part. Robyn, meanwhile, was torturing herself with visions of the woman she’d seen in the café with John: that long coppery hair, the pierced nose, the creamy skin. Was that her, Naomi? ‘And Naomi has complained to the university that . . . ah . . . that apparently John seduced her, promising her the exam paper if she would sleep with him – I’m sorry,’ she added unhappily, seeing the agony on Robyn’s face. ‘Should I go on?’

Robyn nodded without speaking. Let’s hear it, the full mortifying works, she thought. Give me the worst you’ve got.