‘No. He wanted to be, but he failed the course. So sometimes he – liked to pretend. I imagine that’s why he went to the conference.’ The sneer was still there. ‘You didn’t know what happened to him?’

‘No, I had no idea. I didn’t see anything on the news.’ How would I, when I’d been looking for the wrong name? When you hadn’t even lived in the county I thought you lived in? I’d been scrolling through the wrong local news.

‘Well, yes. It was sad, but there you go.’ No sympathy in his tone.

‘Why did it happen? How?’

He shrugged. ‘We don’t know. The car went into a tree, but we couldn’t find any evidence of a brain aneurysm or stroke, nothing to explain why he did it.’

Why he did it. A new thought mushroomed in my mind, one I hadn’t even considered before. ‘You don’t mean he – you mean he could have done this to himself?’ I’d just told you about the baby, that I needed you to leave your wife and be with me. I’d said I was almost sure the baby was yours, based on dates, on how hard I’d tried to avoid Nick knowing my fertile time. Maybe that was why you did this. ‘Oh my God.’ I began to breathe hard, the walls seeming to tilt. ‘I don’t – please, it can’t be true.’

‘I doubt we’ll ever know. Coroner said accidental death.’ He gave me another head-to-toe look, and I felt my flesh creep. ‘You should go home. Rest.’ His eyes travelled down to my bump, and I wondered how many more of my secrets he knew, this man I had never even heard of before.

It was only after the first few hours I even thought of her. Your wife. I don’t know how I got through that journey home. I was shaking, hot and cold all over, delirious almost. But how could you . . . I really can’t bear . . . Oh my God. Oh my God. Funny how when the words run out, in lust or in shock or in grief, we call to a God we don’t believe in any more.

There was too much to even unpick it, the crushing disbelief – you couldn’t be dead. I’d have heard. Someone would have come to tell me. And then the loss, bone-scraping. And the fear – I was still pregnant. It hardly seemed credible I could go through all this and still be pregnant.

Oh darling. I couldn’t believe it. In my head you were somewhere on a sandy beach, watching the surf, and your feet were bare and strong on the wet sand. You hadn’t gone. I would see you again. When the cab drew up at home, and I somehow managed to pay the driver, my only thought was to run to Nora. Nora would help.