“You know, Vicky.”

She lifted her chin, her face pink. “Stop deflecting.”

“Weren’t you the one who suggested we don’t ‘nag’ each other about what’s going on in our lives? Our separate lives, where we’re apparently just two miserable people who share a house, and act vaguely like a married couple about once a year . . .”

“Is it that often? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well, that’s the point!” He spread his arms, aware of trying to make himself larger, wanting to fill the space in front of her. “You barely notice me, except when—”

They were interrupted again by the doorbell. This time it was loud in the hall, making them both jump. Neither moved for a moment, then Vicky went to the door. Chris exhaled when she opened it, never so relieved to see his sister-in-law.

Di looked from one to the other, presumably seeing flushed faces, sensing tension. “Am I interrupting something?” she asked. “I was just passing.”

Vicky smoothed her hair. “No, no, come in, sis.”

Di was still peering questioningly at them as she stepped inside, but Vicky distracted her by asking where she’d been. They began talking about Di’s shopping trip—she always had some story about terrible customer service—and Chris slunk away on the pretext of making coffee. Once he’d delivered their drinks to the living room, he lingered outside the door. Would Vicky tell Di what had happened? He thought back over Ford and Johnson’s questions. It terrified him that he didn’t know what they were thinking, who they were talking to, what they might have been told and how it might seem. Not to mention what they might do next: search his flat, look into his finances?

The idea drove him into the bathroom, where he locked the door and delved into the cabinet. Finding the box right at the back, he emptied it of shaving paraphernalia and out tumbled the notes he’d stashed beneath. It was insane to have kept them. He tore them up, threw them into the bath and turned on the tap. Freya’s words bled in black streams, the paper wilting to mulch as he forced it down the plughole.

Next he rushed across the hall to the glorified cupboard he called his study. He tried to be quiet, but couldn’t help gathering speed as he gutted every box file from this year, scattering tax documents and lesson records across the carpet. Aside from the sorry state his business had been in for longer than he cared to admit, what else might his accounts reveal?

A noise made his head spring up. Di was peeking at him through the slightly ajar study door. How long had she been there? He hadn’t heard her come down the hall. The toilet cistern gurgled in the bathroom behind her.