Until that point, her faith in her husband had been absolute. She had taken him at face value, warts and all, accepting his addiction to work, how little he was around when the boys were growing up, the way he took her for granted as his wingman, without ever questioning her feelings about being subordinate to his stellar career, because she loved him, because it hadn’t always been like that between them … because, although she knew he wasn’t perfect, she had always believed in his integrity. And his intrinsic love for his family.

They had grown up in the same village in the north-east, known each other only by sight – Michael was older by three years and considered inaccessibly cool by her and her friends. When their paths did eventually cross one hot, crazy June night in a Stockton pub, Romy sixteen and star-struck, there had been no turning back for either of them.

In those early days Michael’s drive and charisma had created an exciting life. He had seemed to need her by his side, his pride in his northern roots also tinged with self-consciousness among the mainly public-school crowd his pupillage for the Bar threw him together with.

Now, when Michael was at work and she was alone in the flat, Romy, in an attempt to block out those stark words on the cream writing-paper, would summon up happier times, remind herself that it hadn’t always been like this between them.

And as her birthday loomed – thirteen months after the letter’s arrival – she recalled a long-ago celebration with a smile: Michael standing by the door of their shabby bedsit near Russell Square, grinning and wheeling his arms impatiently as she put on her coat. ‘Hurry up, we’re going to be late.’ He had woken her before six that morning, handing her an envelope: two plane tickets to Paris concealed in a birthday card.

Neither had ever been to the city before. ‘We must have the full-on Paris experience,’ Michael had said excitedly. ‘Do everything: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre. Float down the Seine on a bateau mouche.’ So they stayed in a chilly pension on the Left Bank, with brown tiles on the floor and no pillow, just a lumpy cylindrical bolster, which made them laugh till their sides ached. It was a raw, wet November, but Mona Lisa’s smile, endless steak-frites and a great deal of cheap red wine kept them warm. When they made love, the iron feet of the bed screeched on the hideous tiles and reduced them to more tears of laughter.