There’s a loaded silence at the end of the line and I’m secretly hoping that he’s too busy to care. But who am I trying to kid?

‘Is this a joke?’ he barks.

I close my eyes and try to calm myself. I don’t want another row. ‘It’s not going to make much difference to you,’ I say. ‘You’ll be working all weekend.’

‘Yes, exactly! And in the rare moment I’ll get to myself, I’d like to be able to come back to my house, for a few minutes away from all the madness.’

‘I promise you won’t even know they’re here,’ I offer.

‘When are you going to stop with this one-woman crusade to save the world?’

‘That’s not fair,’ I say. ‘I’ve only ever wanted to help people.’

‘What, by setting up some halfway house where all of life’s waifs and strays can come and go as they please?’

‘No, if you’ll just—’

‘I tell you what,’ he says, and I know another barb is coming. ‘Why don’t you put her in the flat as well?’

My blood runs cold.

‘We can turn it into a commune for battered husbands and wives, or would you prefer to keep it for just you and lover boy?’

‘Leon . . .’ I start, though I have no idea how to say what needs to be said.

‘Do what you like,’ he snaps. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

The line goes dead and I take a few minutes before going back down to the office, jug in hand and a fixed smile on my face.

‘Thanks,’ says Anna, as she sits back down on the couch and pours herself a glass of water.

‘Leon says it’s absolutely fine,’ I say with a reassuring smile. ‘We’ve got two spare rooms, so there’s plenty of space for you and the children.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘It’s just until I get myself sorted out.’ She snorts derisorily. ‘If you’d have told me that I’d ever be in this position, that Nick would ever turn violent . . .’

‘None of us know what turn of events our lives are going to take,’ I say. ‘Even the strongest relationships can do a complete one-eighty.’

‘I would never have thought he was capable of . . . of bringing the children into this dark world he inhabits, especially after everything with Ben.’

I place a hand over hers in a show of solidarity. ‘There’s certainly a line that has to be drawn and that’s normally when the children are directly impacted.’

She nods her head sagely. ‘D’you know, there was a case in New York when I was a teenager, of a wife – the mother of a couple of kids, if I remember rightly – who was stabbed to death by her husband.’