‘Okay, fine, that’s true!’ Finally, Olivia stood up. ‘What Dom said’s also true. How come it’s okay for you to be as blunt as you like but not for anyone else? He told you there was no case to make and you’re blaming him because it wasn’t what you wanted to hear.’

‘ “No case to make,” ’ Charlie sneered. ‘I see you’re fluent in legal bullshit-speak.’

‘Dom called you a pyschopath’s ex-girlfriend because that’s what you are! You always will be. Fucking deal with it. Doesn’t mean it’s all you are. He didn’t say it to be vicious, and he wasn’t revelling in your powerlessness or rubbing anything in—that’s bollocks. He’s just . . . unusually straightforward. You don’t know him like I do.’

‘No, I’d need to open my legs a bit wider to achieve that, wouldn’t I?’ Charlie wasn’t ready to be mature and sensible about anything. Not yet. That she could see she would eventually have to be infuriated her, created the need to do more damage.

‘Shouldn’t be too hard for you,’ Liv retaliated. ‘Think back to before you got engaged to Simon. You had your legs spread so wide most of the time, I’m surprised you managed to walk. You were the human equivalent of a T-junction.’

Charlie tried not to show her shock. Could Liv have thought that up on the spot, or had she formulated the insult long ago and been waiting ever since for the perfect opportunity to deliver it? Had she shared it with Lund? Had they laughed about it together?

‘Any bloke who fancied it could have taken a run at you from a distance and got a hole in one,’ Liv added for good measure.

‘Golf slang,’ said Charlie. ‘Mum and Dad would be so proud. Dommie told me you’ve been trying to turn them against Simon and me.’

‘That’s rubbish. He can’t have said that—it’s not true and he doesn’t lie.’

‘Saint Dommie!’

‘He might have said I’m surprised they haven’t expressed concern about your marriage plans. I am surprised.’

‘And I had to hear that, and more, from someone I’d gone to for help, a lawyer who, as far as I knew, had no other connection to my life! If I’d known you and he were an item, do you think I’d have let him . . .?’ The question hung in the air, incomplete.

‘Let him what?’