‘Alright, fine. Ten minutes.’ For a moment, I thought he was going to stand and watch while I changed, but I challenged his gaze, and he moved outside, leaving the door ajar. ‘Be quick.’

I turned on the shower and rapidly soaped myself and my hair, enjoying the feel of the hot water despite everything. It reminded me of being twenty and spending four dirty days at the Reading festival, except this time I was inside my own house. My mind ran through scenarios. Was there anything I could use to hurt him in here? The lid of the toilet lifted off, or I’d once read a book where someone was stabbed with a shank made from the ballcock. Or there was his dressing gown on the back of the door – could I make a garrotte from the belt? Keeping the water running, I stepped out of the shower – and immediately went skidding, bashing my tailbone into the side of the bath. ‘Oh!’ A loud cry of fear burst from me, and then Nick was in the room.

‘I slipped.’

I was crying, from pain and from the loss of my one chance. A jolt of pure fear had gone through me as I fell – the baby!

‘Oh, come on. You have to be careful.’ He was tender, even, helping me up – I was so vulnerable, naked and wet and pregnant. ‘Are you alright? The baby?’

‘I don’t know,’ I blubbered. ‘I’m sorry, Nick, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do it, any of it. Sean – him. The man I . . . Or Damian, I never meant – I think there’s something wrong with me. I’ll get help, I’ll change. Whatever you want. A therapist, hospital . . . I’ll do it.’

Gently, he pushed the sodden hair from my face. ‘I wish I could believe that, Suze.’

He was wavering, I could feel it. As if there was a way back from this, him locking me up, me plotting to hit him over the head with the toilet lid. But in that moment, I was so afraid, so beaten, that I would have agreed to anything. Perhaps I would even have persuaded him, if we hadn’t heard what was by that point an unfamiliar sound.

The doorbell.

Maddy

Maddy

The man – Sean – didn’t come in the next day, or the next. She realised she was waiting for him, watching the doorway of the pub, her heart lifting and sinking a little each time it was some sunburnt tourist instead, like the boats in the harbour at high tide.

Then, on the third day, it really was him. He wore a navy polo shirt, tight over his lean body, and dark-rimmed glasses that made him look smart and sexy. Maddy turned away, wiping at the bar she’d already cleaned. She could tell he’d come up behind her. She could smell his aftershave, lemony and woody. She made herself not turn around.