‘But what about me, Georgio?’ she said in a low voice. ‘What do I do all day while you’re in here? Our friends treat us as if we have contracted the plague. I’ll rephrase that - your friends. I never liked any of them. I keep getting lectures about men coming out of the woodwork - Davey’s expression, not mine. I am told by all and sundry to look out for my husband’s interests. So you tell me, Georgio, what do I do, eh? Do I sit at home like Cinderella, all dressed up and nowhere to go, or what? I realised yesterday that I need a job of some kind. I can’t sit in that house every day waiting for you to write to me or to come up here for a visit. You don’t come home any more, remember? I am alone, completely alone, except for Dolly. I don’t even have a child to occupy me. Now I try and take an interest in the businesses and you laugh me off like I’m a silly girl. So you tell me, my love, what do I do?’

In twenty years Georgio had never heard his wife talk like this. Before, she had always told him what he wanted to hear. He realised that the nine months leading up to the trial had been a testing time for her. He suddenly saw how beautiful she was, how poised, saw her as others did: the lovely wife of Georgio Brunos. She was an ornament to him, the passion he’d felt, the real passion, having been smothered by familiarity. She had stood by him, and he was grateful to her for that. Other wives of her ilk would have lined their pockets and been batting away from home before the case had even come to trial.

He took a deep breath. His soft brown eyes boring into hers, he said gently, ‘I’m sorry, Donna. You’re right. I am so full of myself. I was always too full of myself. It’s a bad habit I picked up when I was a child. I know my faults, no one better. Forgive me. You do whatever you think you need to. I just didn’t want you to knock yourself out when there’s no need.’

She swallowed heavily, her throat full of tears. She seemed to spend her whole life crying lately.