“No, of course not.” She brushed her hand across her eyes. “Why should you?” I could see her trying to control herself. “And now you’re pregnant. Why did you have the DNA report with you?”

“I’d come round to prove to Tom that Harry was the father. I didn’t want to talk to him; I printed out the e-mail and was just going to put it through his door. Tom wouldn’t leave me alone. He was convinced it was his baby. He wanted to tell Harry that he wasn’t the father and watch him suffer, but it was more than that. He wanted to share custody of the baby. He seemed determined not to lose another child, as he felt he’d lost Josh. I would have had to have contact with him all of my life and I was terrified of that. When the results came in, I came straight over with a note telling him to keep away from me.”

I thought of those early days of my pregnancy, of having my blood taken and collecting Harry’s nail clippings from the bathroom bin, terrified that the result would show the baby was Tom’s. I still felt light with relief when I thought of the result. It dawned on me the night Tom died, when I couldn’t sleep, that he could have still paid Harry a visit and told him I’d slept with him. He could have given the copy of the DNA test as proof that I was worried about the baby’s parentage. But even if he had, and even if I’d had to admit to sleeping with Tom, then at least the child was Harry’s. Still, I’d had a lucky escape; I knew that.

“How did you find out that Tom knew about you and Harry?” I asked.

She didn’t speak for ages and I had to stare at her quite hard to make her notice. Then she said in a quiet voice, “The day before . . . Well, the day before I saw you, I bumped into Harry in a café in Nantwich. We hadn’t planned to meet; it was just chance. He’d had a meeting with a client and was buying cakes to take back to the office. We had a talk. A coffee. We cleared the air. We won’t be seeing each other again.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, remembering that night and how I’d felt the distance between us. So that was why Harry had seemed to have something on his mind. “I’m glad you told me.”

“I was an idiot,” she said. “I think I wanted to get out of my marriage and saw him as my savior.”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“I know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”