I tried to call her back then but the phone just rang out, so I had no alternative but to jump on my bike and pedal as hard as I could. The car was free now that Anya wasn’t working, but I was trying to lose a few pounds put on by the stress-eating a new baby brings.

Sweat poured down my temples as I hammered those pedals and, as I came to where I could see the silver swathe of sea, a memory came back of that other day, last summer, when the End of the Summer tickets were burning a hole in my satchel and the world was a simpler place. When my wife wasn’t a murderer.

This thought curdled with all the worries about what could have happened at home. I had visions of Livi accidentally scalded with a pan of boiling water or being snatched from the back garden where Anya occasionally put the bouncy chair.

Funny that it didn’t occur to me that what I would see would be a police car.

I used my key and, coming into the house with a knotted stomach, found a scene of calm, despite the frantic nature of Anya’s messages. There were two policewomen in the living room, plainclothes, but so obviously coppers to anyone who had grown up where I did. One was East Asian and had the bearing of the more senior of the two, the other a plump brown-haired woman. They were both about my age.

Anya was standing in the middle of the room, burping Livi over her shoulder, rubbing small circles against the yellow terrycloth of the baby’s sleepsuit. Her eyes were unnaturally bright, it seemed, but when she spoke, her voice was oddly formal, clipped and polite.

‘Elliott, this is DS Jin and DC Morgan.’

I said, ‘Hello,’ to them and they murmured greetings back with frowns.

‘They need me to come down to the station to have a chat, so you need to be here for Livi.’

Anya handed me our daughter, who felt dense and a bit too hot, as though she had been pressed against her mother for some time.

‘Mr Ryland—’ began the Asian policewoman and Anya interrupted her.

‘No,’ she said, ‘he is Mr Little.’

‘Mr Little,’ said the woman, with barely suppressed irritation. ‘It’s not quite a case of asking your wife down for a chat. We have just arrested her on suspicion of murder.’

ELLIOTT

There are moments in your life so strange and shocking that you have no immediate response and all you can do is flounder in a sea of confused emotion. I stood there, mouth opening and closing helplessly.

Arrested?