She sits forward suddenly, and the air goes still. She pushes her chair back, gets up and walks over to the sofa. Over the back, neatly folded, is a black fine-wool sweater. She picks it up, opens it out and turns to me.

‘Are you seeing someone?’

The idea is so outlandish that I laugh. ‘No, of course not. That belongs to Douglas. He must have left it behind last time he was here.’

But she’s not listening to me. She runs her fingers over the soft wool, then puts it back, and it’s the care with which she does it, stroking it smooth, and the sensuality of the gesture, that sends the tension inside me sky-rocketing. Something has gone on between Anna and my ex. The thought leaps into my mind and once it’s there, I can’t dislodge it.

ANNA

Friday, 15 June 2018

GRACE WAS FROWNING. ‘ARE YOU … UM,’ SHE SAID slowly. ‘Are you and Douglas … Did you?’

Anna didn’t speak and Grace’s face fell.

‘Oh, Anna. You poor thing.’

‘What do you mean?’ The sympathy was false; Grace was jealous. ‘We’re lovers. He loves me.’

‘I’m sorry, but the only person Douglas Parr loves, other than himself, is Lottie.’

‘You don’t know anything about it.’

She felt threatened by Grace, by her assurance, by her grand house and expensive furnishings. She thought she knew it all, but she didn’t. She knew nothing. It was clear to Anna that Grace had never really got over Douglas. Anna should be the one feeling sorry for her.

‘When did it start?’ Grace asked. She was trying to sound casually interested. It wasn’t working.

‘That evening he came to pick up Lottie.’

‘Of course. I forgot about that. He fixed your plumbing.’

Anna smiled, remembering. ‘We just clicked.’

She was proud of this, proud to have fooled everyone, but it was such a relief to be able to tell, to say, you never guessed! Ha ha. Aren’t I clever? Childish, but immensely satisfying.

The moment was short-lived, spoilt by Grace’s look of pity. ‘You must have something he wants. He isn’t in love with you.’

‘Why the hell shouldn’t he love me?’

‘Sorry, that came out wrong. Why did neither of you say? It wouldn’t have bothered me.’

Anna paced over to the sink and bent to drink from the tap, raising her right arm automatically and crooking it over the back of her neck to scoop away hair that wasn’t there. She dropped her hand, embarrassed.

‘He didn’t want people to know.’

‘Didn’t you question why? You had nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘Unlike you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Douglas told me you stabbed him.’ She had actually found out when Douglas had taunted Nick with it. She had asked him later on why he had lied, and he had shrugged and said it was none of her business.