I could tell she thought I was crazy. “I loved him.” I couldn’t say whether I did now or not, and hoped she wouldn’t ask me. “And I thought he loved me.”

“But why were you fired?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t exactly what I thought would happen.” My throat clenched up and I took a long slug of my drink for courage. “Harry and I decided we wanted to be together. It was all agreed. I was going to leave Tom. He was going to leave Emma. It was all arranged.”

“What? You were leaving home to live with Harry?” And you didn’t tell me? rang in the air. “When?”

“Last Friday.”

“But Jane said he went on holiday on Friday night. She said it was all planned.” She looked confused. “I wondered why he hadn’t said anything about it. You know how he’d normally look forward to his holidays and talk about them. He never even said he’d be off work.”

“He wasn’t meant to be,” I said. “He was meant to be leaving home. To be with me. We’d booked a hotel and were supposed to meet up there.”

She was quiet for a minute and I could tell her mind was racing. “When I left the office at three o’clock, you didn’t say a word. I asked what you were doing at the weekend and you said, ‘Nothing much.’ Remember, I asked if you fancied going to see a movie that night? You said you were tired and just wanted to watch television.”

“I’m sorry. I felt horrible about that. I would have told you on Monday. We’d planned that I’d tell Tom and he’d tell Emma, then we’d meet in the hotel afterward.” I could feel my throat tighten. “And then he didn’t turn up.”

“But you did?”

“Yes.”

“And you’d already told Tom it was over?”

“Yes.”

She took a deep breath. “Oh no. I don’t think I could have done that. I would have wanted him to leave home first, I think.”

I winced. “That was the thing. I thought I could trust him.”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone that much.” We sat in silence for a while, then she said, “So you got to the hotel and Harry wasn’t there?”

I nodded, still furious at his betrayal. “I waited all night. All weekend.” I thought of how I’d sat there so excited at first, before I started to worry. I remembered calling the hospitals and felt such a fool. All that time he was on holiday, having a romantic break with his wife.

Sarah looked shell-shocked. “Didn’t he call you?”

“Nope.”

“Did you call him?”

“A couple of times.” Or a couple of hundred times. “His phone went straight to voice mail.”