A fresh ache below my sternum. He’s too proud, too principled. Those rules of his: A man must look after his family, his wife. Don’t take the dole if you can stand on your own two feet. There is nothing worse than hurting a woman or a child. Yet I feared him. I feared for my life. I’m thinking of something to say, some hope to offer but before I can open my mouth, he’s speaking again.

‘What I don’t get, Lina, is why you ran away. Why you went to the police. You could have asked me about that video and I would have explained it. Did you think I could actually hurt you?’

I shake my head, hot tears come. ‘I don’t know, Cain. I was overwhelmed. The people that had access to that video are perverts and –’

‘Did you actually believe I had something to do with recording the video? That’s where your mind went?’

‘I panicked. I thought…’

‘You thought it was me. You thought I was a creep, despite knowing me for seven years, and swearing to always love and trust me. You thought I could do something like that?’ Now his eyes come back up to me with a sour look. I hold my elbows, sniff as tears come.

‘You grabbed me.’

‘That’s my instincts, Lina. You gave me a fright. Then I wanted to calm you down but you were already sprinting.’ He finishes the glass of water and sets it down. ‘They asked me what porn sites I visit, they wanted to know everything about what I do online. They asked if I’d ever watched child pornography. It was mortifying.’

‘I got scared.’ I use the heel of my palm to smear the tears from my cheeks.

‘Why did you book that house on WeStay?’

I become still, an insect trapped.

‘What hou –’

He shakes his head, resigned, and I feel a deep aching sadness. I can see it already by the way his shoulders drop.

‘Your work email was on my phone from that night at the restaurant,’ he says. ‘I saw you’d booked a WeStay. Are you seeing someone, is that it?’

‘No, no one,’ I begin. How can I explain it? ‘It’s not that, Cain. Don’t ever think that, I only want you.’

That is how he knows. Everything seems to loosen with the relief. He doesn’t know about Daniel and me.

He scratches the back of his neck and squeezes his eyes closed. When he starts speaking again he keeps them screwed shut. ‘The truth, Lina.’

If only it were that easy. There’s no truth for him. I can’t put him through more hell.

‘I was working, so I didn’t get there until later.’ I pause, thinking, and he decides to fill the silence.