I had to be sure. I searched frantically through Tom’s desk until I found his binoculars. I’d bought them for him one Christmas when I was stuck for something to buy. He’d brought it up every Christmas afterward, as a sign I didn’t know him. He was right. I didn’t, and now I never would.

I dragged a chair over to the window and, balancing precariously on it, I focused the lens on the back of the silver car.

Slowly the registration plate came into focus and I saw the letters MW. I held my breath and moved the binoculars down a little. There it was, the dual exhaust.

It was as though my brain couldn’t compute what my eyes had seen. I stood staring for a few minutes, watched as Oliver clapped Josh on the back and turned to come back to his own house. I watched as Josh started his car and drove off carefully. Once Oliver was in his own house I went downstairs and into the garden and put the scarf into the bin outside. I didn’t want to see it again. I’d thought it was bought with love—well, look how that turned out. And it was touched, taken, by someone who hated me.

When I came back into the house I was cold and shivering, though the day was still warm. I sat in the kitchen, the only room I’d really felt at home in, my arms around my chest, and thought about the car. Had Tom borrowed it from Josh, or had it been Josh who’d followed me that night? And then I thought: Who had been in my house? Had Tom really given Josh my scarf to give to me, or had Josh taken it from me in the middle of the night?

How could I know? I could never ask Josh without sounding as though I was crazy, and in any case I knew I would never completely trust his answer.

Tom would love that. He could rest in peace; I couldn’t.

CHAPTER 78

Ruby

It took almost a week to get the house sorted out, and while I scrubbed floors and paintwork and deep-cleaned carpets and curtains, all I could do was think about Tom and how he’d gotten hold of a key to my flat and how he’d tormented me there, and Josh and his car.