HE SITS IN HIS STUDY, STARING AT THE BLANK SCREEN. Grace is upstairs, running a bath. He’s moved the keyboard out of the way and has a sheet of paper in front of him. It won’t do. He can’t hide behind a letter, he needs to tell her to her face and be man enough to take the consequences. He trails his pen across the next line, then sighs, and writes, I’m sorry. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Then he crumples it up and throws it in the bin. Why did he ask her to marry him? He should have waited until all this was sorted out. It had been an impulse, and it came from the wrong place, a place of loneliness and fear. He had wanted to tie her to him. Stupid.

He stretches his legs out, folds his arms across his chest and leans his head back. He stares at the ceiling until it blurs, then groans and takes the screwed-up sheet out of the dustbin, smooths it out, folds it and shoves it into his back pocket. He can’t risk it being found.

He goes out on to the landing and calls her name. She comes out of the bedroom, wrapped in a towel, her hair bunched up.

‘I’m just nipping out,’ he says.

‘But it’s almost nine o’clock. Why do you need to go now?’

‘Tension headache. I need air.’

‘OK, darling.’ She pauses, and he winces inwardly. She’s not happy about it. ‘Don’t be long.’

Downstairs, with uncanny perspicacity, Toffee is waiting underneath his leash.

‘Not this time, boy.’

Nick leads him back into the kitchen where he checks the class address list that Grace keeps stuck to the fridge, then slips out and closes the door on Toffee’s reproachful whine.

He hesitates before he leaves the pub, the taste of whisky still in his mouth, questioning what exactly it is he wants to say to her. Perhaps it was a mistake to come here first, another mistake to have ordered a double. But he needed it and it’s done now anyway.

His phone vibrates in his pocket as he’s turning the corner. He takes it out and glances at the message. It’s an unknown number. The message makes his blood run cold.

Be very careful, Nick. If you take a wrong step now, there will be consequences. You won’t be able to protect Grace or Lottie.

He reads it again. Who is this and how do they know their names? It must be about his conversation with Angus on Friday. Angus had mentioned others, hadn’t he? He had warned Nick that he didn’t know who he was dealing with.