‘Was I? Oh… I was just saying that I suppose I felt a bit weird about you spending the night with another man. Someone other than Rob I mean.’

‘You know that’s ridiculous, don’t you?’

He nods. ‘Yeah. I do. But you must have felt excited by it, even if nothing was going to happen?’

Hearing this forces Abby to confront what she hasn’t allowed herself to. ‘I suppose. In a way. It felt… rebellious? Naughty? Even though sex was never on the table. Greg was… he was attractive and charismatic, I suppose. And yes, it was nice to be in the presence of someone other than Rob for a few hours. Greg was easy to talk to.’ She catches a flicker in Mark’s eyes. ‘But that feeling didn’t last. As soon as he’d told me what he’d done everything changed. It was like a light turning off.’

‘But can you honestly say that if he hadn’t confessed then you wouldn’t have wanted him?’

‘No! I would never have done that to Sienna. Or Rob.’

‘You cheated with me,’ he reminds her.

She grabs his hand. ‘But that’s you. I’m sure I don’t need to explain why that was completely different.’

He smiles. Finally, she’s appeased him.

‘You weren’t jealous like this when we were together before,’ she says.

‘People change, don’t they?’ He laughs, and she joins in, even though outside of this restaurant she has nothing to laugh about and everything to fear.

‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ Mark stands and glances around for the toilets. He doesn’t seem to notice, or mind, that he’s left his phone on the table. He trusts her, and he’s got nothing to hide. It’s a comforting thought.

She still believes this when his phone rings and she sees Cassie’s name light up the screen. This is fine. It’s normal for them to still be in contact when they’ve got a house to sell and a divorce to sort out. Abby still talks to Rob, so she can’t worry about Mark doing the same with his ex. This is it for them, this time; the feeling beats as strongly as a pulse.

The phone falls silent and seconds later an email notification pings on the screen. Abby just has time to catch the name of the sender before the screen returns to black: [email protected].

Quickly, she grabs her own phone and googles the address. It’s for the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Brighton is where Greg’s debit card was supposedly used, although it now looks likely that it hadn’t been him using it. It’s also close to where his body was found. Why would Mark have an email from a hotel there?