‘Oh God.’ Karla winced. ‘Did you argue with him again?’

Jason didn’t much like the implication of that, as if he were somehow partly to blame for the fact that he and her father didn’t get on. As far as Jason was concerned, he deserved a medal for being remotely civil to someone like Robert Fenton. ‘Nope. I held my temper, you’ll be pleased to know, excused myself to reclaim my wife from the arms of another man and then suggested we leave, which my wife was severely pissed off about. All in all, not a great night.’

Karla spilled out the passenger side as he shoved his door open and climbed out. ‘Is that what that was all about?’

‘What what was all about?’ Jason headed for the front door.

‘Your moodiness.’ Karla followed him. ‘You barely spoke to me on the dance floor, and you’ve hardly spoken a word since.’

‘I couldn’t hear myself speaking on the dance floor,’ Jason pointed out, going in first and heading towards the lounge, where the TV was on way too loud. ‘And I’m not “moody”. I just have a lot on my mind.’

Correction: now he was feeling a definite mood coming on. ‘Holly?’ He swung his gaze in his daughter’s direction. ‘What are you doing up? It’s way past your bedtime. And what in God’s name are you watching?’ He turned his attention to the TV, which the babysitter had paused, unfortunately freezing an opaque-eyed corpse rising from a post-mortem table.

Jesus. It would give Holly nightmares for weeks. Storming in, Jason shot the babysitter an unimpressed look as he relieved her of the TV remote.

‘Dad!’ Her expression indignant, Holly unfurled herself from the armchair as he hit the off button. ‘I was watching that.’

‘Bed,’ Jason said, pointing the way.

Holly splayed her hands. ‘But you and Mum let me watch Netflix.’

‘Age-appropriate stuff, Holly. Which this is not.’ Jason folded his arms and waited.

Clearly seeing there was no wiggle room, Holly folded her arms in turn and then, her face set in a petulant scowl, she flounced past him to the hall. ‘This is so unfair,’ she muttered, as she went. ‘You’re treating me like a child.’

Watching her disappear, wearing a fluffy leopard skin onesie and her feet adorned with furry white unicorn slippers, Jason shook his head in bemusement, and then turned angrily to their babysitter, who was looking sheepish. And so she should be.

‘What the hell were you thinking, Megan?’ he asked her, trying very hard not to lose his temper.

‘She couldn’t sleep,’ Megan offered by way of explanation, as she scrambled up to stuff her feet into the pumps she’d kicked off and retrieve her phone from the coffee table.

Jason laughed, disbelieving. ‘Excuse me?’