He lowered his eyes as she spoke and she couldn’t see his expression. ‘I shouldn’t have to explain anything.’ His eyes met hers again, his gaze level. ‘You should be on my side, Romy, without question.’

Romy let out a tired sigh. Stalemate. She no longer had the energy or the desire to control herself, to protect him from the knowledge that there was, indeed, that tiny sliver of doubt in her mind.

‘A woman writes to me to say you’ve molested her. You show no interest, not even much outrage. You don’t even remember – you say – who she is. And apparently have no interest in finding out or even talking about it.’ She paused. ‘Look at it objectively, Michael. If this were one of your clients, wouldn’t you find it all a little strange?’

His stare did not waver and he didn’t move a muscle, as if he had suddenly been turned to stone. Romy felt a frisson of dread that he might be about to admit some level of guilt. But he gave a harsh laugh and his features returned to normal.

‘Ha! If you’re comparing me to my clients, Romy, then there’s no reaction on earth I would find the slightest bit odd.’

‘So you’re not prepared to talk about it, even now?’

He leant forward, arms akimbo. ‘Read my lips. There is nothing to talk about.’ The last words were almost shouted across the coffee table, flecks of spit shooting from his mouth.

She wanted to bang his head against the wall, to knock some sense into him somehow, to dislodge the infuriating denial that had finally driven them apart. But she knew it was pointless.

‘It’s not just me who’s been different since the letter,’ she said. ‘You completely shut me out. As if I was somehow to blame.’

Michael had paced up and down for a minute, then gone to lean against the mantelpiece, tapping the wood impatiently with his fingers. ‘Only because you clearly thought I’d done it,’ he said, his tone aggrieved. ‘But how can I prove I didn’t? I could say so till the cows come home, but you wouldn’t necessarily believe me. So I wasn’t going to waste my breath.’ He sighed. ‘And you wanted to talk about nothing else. Are you surprised I avoided your company?’

Why didn’t you say this at the time? Romy had found she couldn’t speak. Bubbling up inside her was a melting pot of emotions that made her feel almost nauseous. Doubt – of herself and him – fury at his intransigence, love for the man she thought she remembered, and finally bewilderment that they had got to a point at which the connection between them appeared so flimsy that his presence was like that of a stranger.