Romy woke to find herself in a strange bed: the spare room in the flat, which she had never slept in before last night. After she’d moved out, Michael had apparently gone back to the main bedroom, and Romy found herself reluctant to sleep in what was now his and Anezka’s bed. And, anyway, the room was a mess. The bed had been pushed aside, the duvet balled and dumped in the corner by the window, the sheet half pulled from the mattress. There was a scrunched-up plastic hood of some sort littering the floor and a syringe cover – debris from the paramedics’ equipment. They must have been in a hurry, she thought miserably, as she began to set the room to rights.

The flat no longer felt like her home, but there were disturbing echoes everywhere of her life with Michael. She had taken very little to the cottage. The photos of the family on the walls, all her kitchen gadgets, the books and even various bottles of self-tan and sachets of hair mask in the bathroom cupboard were exactly as she’d left them. There was very little sign of the Czech girlfriend, except for a scented candle in the bathroom – scented candles always made Romy sneeze – and a few random items of clothing in her side of the wardrobe.

Leo was right: Anezka was quite something. Romy and Leo were sitting on either side of Michael’s bed when she’d arrived at the ICU the previous afternoon in a whirlwind of drama.

Tall, slim and very beautiful, she had a dramatic curtain of thick, brown hair, which she raked with her fingers, swishing it from side to side every two minutes as if she couldn’t decide where it was most comfortable, huge blue eyes in a classically proportioned face and full, perfect lips that made Angelina Jolie’s look amateur. Romy was taken aback. As Leo had observed, she seemed so young and so glamorous – for some reason she’d pictured a woman more like the tough, clever types Michael admired in his professional life.

She was dressed in jeans, a round-necked white T-shirt – which showed off her perfect breasts – and trainers with no socks. But she’d thrown over the simple ensemble an oversized grey and white checked duster coat that instantly lifted the outfit to supermodel status. Leo was clearly in awe, his youthful skin blushing under her enthusiastic hug.

‘Oh, my God, darling. What has he done? I can’t believe this is happening,’ she exclaimed loudly, drawing the attention of most of the nursing staff and those patients who weren’t actually in a coma.