That single thought, her throwaway apology, is enough to ignite Joe’s temper, like a match that lights so easily with the merest touch against the phosphorous side of the box. ‘Is that right?’ he says. ‘So let me get this straight. I risked my fucking marriage for you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Frannie chunters, her jaw quivering. Joe advances towards her.

‘All right,’ Cathy shouts. Frannie and Joe turn to her in surprise. Frannie stands up. ‘Enough. Let’s just – Joe. Go home. Let’s regroup tomorrow.’

‘Fuck off,’ he barks. Frannie takes two steps backwards. Her back is to the wall. He’s making her do this, he’s dimly aware. He can see her ribs underneath her V-neck t-shirt. Each freckled rib, her body a xylophone. He can see the glands that sit behind her collarbone. He can’t stop himself reaching for her wrists. He can feel her pulse beneath his fingertips.

‘Joe,’ Cathy says, but he glares at her, a quick snarl, then back to Frannie. Back to fucking business.

‘You have ruined everything,’ he hisses at her. ‘You have ruined our family. You have ruined my family.’

He throws down her wrists and turns his back to her.

‘Leave,’ Cathy says.

Tears are running unchecked down Frannie’s cheeks, one after the other, like raindrops down a window. ‘Don’t say that,’ she says softly. ‘Don’t say it like it’s all over.’ She crumples in front of him. She sits on her kitchen floor and loses all dignity, clear snot running down from her nose, tears, eyeliner everywhere. She is a tangle of angular limbs.

‘Isn’t it?’ Joe says. If he doesn’t leave now, the top of his head is going to explode, a whale blow-hole right in the centre.

He’s being taken over by anger. His blood is lava. His bones fried, baked hot. He’s got to … he’s got to get out of here. He’s got to get out of his body. His mind. ‘You fucking, you fucking bitch,’ he says to Frannie. His heart feels weird. Maybe he’s having a heart attack. It’s welcome, he thinks, as he massages his chest. Dropping dead is fucking welcome at the moment, the mess they’re in. The fucking mess of it. The lies. The post-mortem. A homicide enquiry, his family at the centre of it. Lydia. He has nothing left to lose now, nothing.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Frannie says to him, reaching up to him. ‘I’m sorry, Joe. I wanted to tell you – but I thought … I just thought it would make it all worse. And it didn’t change anything if you didn’t know.’

‘How could you?’ Joe says, his gaze meeting Frannie’s at last. ‘How the fuck could you?’

‘But it doesn’t change anything!’ she says plaintively.

‘You’re a murderer now,’ Joe says.

He turns and walks away from Frannie, slamming the door so hard behind him that all three cottages quake.

64.

Cathy

Later, as she lies in bed, finally calm, Cathy hears voices outside. She stumbles to the window and looks out. Joe and Frannie are talking over their fence, next to the outhouse. Joe is lighting a cigarette. His lighter momentarily casts his fingers in an amber light, then is extinguished again.