I can’t muster the energy to drive home straight away. I tip my seat back again and stay like that for a period. I could sleep right here with the radio soothing my mind, and for a moment too long I stay in that position because when I open my eyes, the car is full of mid-afternoon sun. I check the time to find it’s almost three o’clock. It’s been hours. Pressing my fingers to my eyelids, I let out a long yawn before reaching for the keys and starting the car.

The gate opens and I head off.

At home something has changed. I’m grieving for my old life, for the man I’ve loved all these years who might not be who I think he is. Rata’s words, you should know everything about a person after seven years, are trapped like flies in the web of my mind. He’s right and I’m angry. Angry at Cain. What has he done?

I do something productive to take my mind off things. I print out the next fortnight’s schedule and pin it to the fridge with a magnet. Now I’ll see it every day.

Dragging my anger and my empty stomach up the stairs to the bedroom, I collapse beneath the covers once more and protectively wrap my arms around my belly. My last thought is about the baby, what this means for it. My connection to it has already grown so strong; the instinct to protect it fuelled me last night.

I don’t need my sleep mask, or tea, or rain sounds, I just tumble into the dark hole of slumber once more.

•

The phone call from Rata comes at around midnight. I’m in bed, the same bed I’ve shared with Cain for so many years. This house is only a rental but like the lake house it’s charged with memories. I reach for the phone, see the time and want to hurl it at the window but I know it must be about Cain. I bring it to my ear.

‘Hello.’

‘Lina, it’s Detective Rata, sorry to call you at this hour.’ He doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds rushed and frustrated.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Cain has been cooperative in assisting the search through his personal computer files, and web use. We have no evidence to suggest your husband has engaged in any criminal activity outside of his use of proxy servers to access international gambling websites – something for which he will be cautioned and not charged.’

‘But what about the video? Where did it come from?’

‘The footage you discovered your husband watching was sent by an anonymous email address from an encrypted server.’

A wave of relief rushes through me, but immediately the shame and guilt empties me. I put him through hell today. ‘So what does this mean?’