As he pulled up outside the door, he felt a small twinge of apprehension. Cynthia was getting more and more insistent about their ‘relationship’ as she called it, and he had a feeling she would soon be asking him to call time on his marriage, and that was never going to happen. But, ever the optimist, he hoped he was wrong; they still had great sex and that was basically what their ‘relationship’ had always been about. Knowing what she was capable of still rocked his boat, and he knew that he was playing with a very dangerous adversary. That was part of the thrill. But he knew, when all was said and done, that as hard as she was, he was harder and, if necessary, he would show her that, and put the frighteners on her once and for all. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that of course, but he had to watch his back.

As he walked through the door he had to smile. She had more front than Brighton, sitting on the kitchen table, legs splayed and a beatific smile on her face.

‘I thought you’d never get here!’

‘It’s your birthday tomorrow – as if I would forget that.’ He was undoing his trousers as he spoke and she laughed with him.

An hour earlier she had fed her husband and daughter at this very table, knowing that once they were out for the evening, she would be entertaining Jonny. James had taken Gabriella out late night shopping to get her birthday present – like she believed they were going to the pictures! – but it was sweet of James to still play the part of the caring husband. She knew that her daughter didn’t want to go. Gabriella’s idea of a birthday present for her mother would be a milkshake full to the brim with deadly nightshade if it had been left to her. After all, today she had found out about the boarding school; the look on her daughter’s face! It was true a picture was worth a thousand words – Gabriella’s face had been worth that and more.

But that was forgotten now her Jonny was inside her and, as always, for both of them, it was all they really needed. When they were together like this, it was as if the rest of the world had disappeared, and it was just them.

Unfortunately, Jimmy Tailor had only had to go as far as his mother-in-law’s to collect his wife’s very expensive Rolex watch. Jack had got it for him cheap and, having spotted Jonny’s car outside, as he and Gabby walked back through the front door, he expected to see Jonny Parker in his front room sipping a drink. But, strangely, it was in darkness. Moving through to the kitchen, his daughter by his side, Jimmy instead walked into a scene he would never in a million years have envisaged.