‘What I have to say is this,’ said Nula briskly. ‘Look. I’ve fancied you just about forever. So tonight, let’s sleep together. No strings, no commitment, it need never happen again. Just this once, OK? What do you say?’

Terry said nothing. The silence was thick in the kitchen all of a sudden, stifling. Nula could feel her face burning, could hear her heart racing in her chest. Why didn’t he speak?

Then Terry pushed his chair back and stood up, yanking his jacket from the back of it and slipping it on. He was breathing hard and when he looked at her his face was twisted with disgust.

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he said tightly. ‘Charlie’s my best mate. You’re supposed to be his wife. I can’t believe you’d say something like that.’

Nula stood up too, bile prickling in her gullet as anxiety tore at her. She’d misjudged things. Terry being polite to her as Mrs Charlie Stone didn’t translate into Terry fucking her. She could see that now. Terry, usually so even-tempered, looked furious. She tried a smile, a shrug, although inside she felt sick with humiliation.

‘As I said,’ she told him, ‘no problem. I’ve asked, you’ve said no. That’s good enough for me.’

But it wasn’t good enough. Once again she felt like the awkward one, the fat big-nosed flat-chested cow in the communal changing rooms at school.

Nula the loser.

She could still hear the girls chanting that, laughing at her in her vest when they were all in starter bras. All the good-looking boys at school had been beyond her, way out of her league. Now, with Terry, nothing had changed. She was still the same girl. The same loser.

‘I’m going to check the grounds,’ he said, then went to the kitchen door.

Everything was in lockdown these days. With the drugs game came the need for ever-increasing security. There were gates. Alarms. Heavy-looking blokes everywhere. Thinking of all that, Nula realized that she hadn’t felt truly safe in a long, long time. Sometimes she really wished they could step the whole thing back a gear. Expand the legit cover business, the furniture factories, and ditch the drug stuff. But this was Charlie. There was no chance of that ever happening, not while he drew breath.

Suddenly Terry turned back and stabbed a finger in her direction. ‘We won’t talk about this again.’

Then a horrible thought occurred to Nula. ‘You won’t tell Charlie?’ she said faintly. Now she really felt sick. Charlie would go ballistic, and that was a terrifying thought. Charlie in a rage was not a pretty sight.

Oh Christ, I got this wrong . . .

‘Tell him what? That he’s married to a cheating cow? I don’t know, Nula. I really don’t know.’

Then he was out of the door and gone.

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