Another horrible laugh. ‘He wanted to go away, didn’t he? Owed a lot of money to a lot of people. They’re pretty slow at that hospital, but at some point they’d have noticed the cash was gone.’

‘What cash?’

He looked at me like I was stupid. ‘He was in charge of the money, love. You don’t think he didn’t dip his hand in the till from time to time?’

The blood crashed in my ears. Conway was saying Patrick had, what, embezzled money from the NHS? He’d been planning to leave me, run away with Suzi after all? He had chosen her over me? A flare-up of my old rage at her. ‘It was for Suzi? The two of them were going to leave?’

‘God, no.’ He smiled, like a poker player laying down a winning hand. ‘He wanted to get away from both of you. You, and that demanding slut, always on at him to leave you. He wanted to start a new life. And then when she said she was up the duff, well – it got more urgent, didn’t it?’ Then, at my consternation, he laughed again. ‘Oh Elle-belle. You really are in the dark, love. You actually thought he was dead?’

The world stopped. ‘What?’

‘I told you. Why do you think he drove into a tree? One minute he’s fine, talking and all, next he’s carked it? And he cancelled his life insurance not long before – the companies come sniffing if there’s a sudden death, don’t they, so better not to give them the chance. Much more careful than the police, they are.’ He smiled at me, and it was horrible. ‘Eleanor, love – Paddy’s not dead. It’s just another of his tricks.’

The life I’d thought already shattered was breaking up further, into a million pieces. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Of course he was dead, I’d stood at his graveside. There had been an autopsy. A body buried, though admittedly I had not seen it. I hadn’t wanted to. It couldn’t be true. It was the stuff of lurid thrillers. Someone had been in the coffin, and I knew enough about hospital procedures around violent deaths to be sure they were thorough. In order to declare my husband dead, they would have needed a body, one similar enough to be mistaken for him. And how would he get a dead body, out of nowhere like that? It didn’t make any sense. I managed to gasp out, ‘Water. Please can I have some water?’

As Conway left the room, I abandoned my no-touching resolution and fell on to the horrible sofa. All the strength had gone in my legs. No, no, no. It couldn’t be true. It was absurd.