My stomach tightened further as she climbed out of the car. It was as though I was seeing her for the first time. My competitor. The woman who’d been having an affair with my husband. She looked younger than I remembered, more like the old photo I’d seen on their mantelpiece, the one where Tom’s son was young. Her hair was wavy now and I could see highlights there, glinting as she walked across the road.

She walked into the café and looked around. I waved halfheartedly, wondering why on earth I was there.

“Hi,” she said. She blushed bright red and I thought, Good, so you should. I had to quell the thought that I wasn’t exactly an innocent here. “Can I get you a drink?”

“No, thanks. I’m fine.”

She ordered coffee at the counter and waited for it before coming back to my table. She sat down next to me; I knew she’d sat there so that we could both check out the room that way, see if we were noticed together. Nobody was looking at us, though. We just seemed like a couple of friends having a drink together. Appearances can be so deceptive.

Ruby stirred her coffee until I wanted to grab the spoon from her. She looked up and saw my expression and put the spoon down swiftly. “I’ve got something to tell you,” she said.

My heart thumped hard in my chest. “Did they look at his phone?”

She looked confused. “No, why?”

“Are you sure? Absolutely certain?”

Every night since Tom died I’d woken at about three o’clock and lain in bed worrying about his phone. I hadn’t thought about it on the day itself, there was too much to think about, but I’d thought of little else since. I knew it would be password protected, but the police could get beyond that, couldn’t they? And once they’d examined it, they’d say, Hold on, isn’t this person he’s sending threatening messages to the same woman who said she’d witnessed his accident? Then they’d arrest me. Each night I panicked at the thought that I’d have my baby in prison and Harry would have to take care of it. We’d never get past that, and when I left prison the baby would stay with him.

“Yes. I took it with me.” She flushed. “Actually I smashed it that night, down by the river, and threw the pieces away. Don’t worry, nobody will find anything now.”

I was overwhelmed with relief. “Oh, thank God. I wish you’d told me.”

“I’m sorry. I should have. I just didn’t think. I was waiting for the postmortem results.”

I saw telltale shadows under her eyes and knew she’d spent her nights the same way I had. My mouth was dry. “Do you know the results now?”

She nodded. “Accidental death.”