She didn’t know what to think about first: Jared, Devan, her behaviour … Sex against a wall in a back alley? Me, Connie McCabe? It was unthinkable. And she was, indeed, too tired to think. A frantic day lay ahead, including hours on trains with too much silence in which to contemplate what she’d done. When she closed her eyes at last, laying her cheek gratefully against the cool cotton of the hotel pillow, she was aware of nothing else until her phone alarm’s painfully insistent buzzing.

9

Connie opened her eyes to find herself in her own bed again. She looked around, expecting to see her husband, but Devan was not there, the sheets and pillow on his side untouched. She tried to clear her head. Then she remembered.

Devan’s greeting to her the previous day when he had picked her up from the station had been muted, scarcely even friendly. And she was barely through the front door when he announced he was off to the pub.

‘It’s Dix’s birthday,’ he’d said. ‘Come if you like.’

Connie had no desire to sit and watch Dix fall off his stool yet again, even if it was his birthday and he had an excuse for once, so she declined.

‘By the way,’ Devan said, in parting, ‘I’ve moved into the spare room. I’m sleeping really badly at the moment and I don’t want to disturb you. You’ll be exhausted after your trip.’

Connie had stared at his retreating back. Was this his form of punishment for her intransigence? Was his sympathy for her tiredness just veiled sarcasm? She wasn’t sure: he had spoken from the hall – perhaps deliberately – as he was opening the front door, so she couldn’t see his face.

In a sense it was a relief. On two counts. The tension at bedtime in the past months had been huge – pretty much since the incident with the lilac negligee – Devan always avoiding coming up at the same time as she, then smartly turning his back. She felt like a pariah in her own bed.