My first thought was Damian. I could still hardly think of it without getting red all over, hot and agonised with shame, a sluice of sheer fear in my veins.

You had asked me straight up. Or rather you told me – ‘You’ve done this before.’

‘Um. Not really.’ I couldn’t lie to you. I loved it, the scrutiny. Nick was so easy to lie to I didn’t know how I’d ever stop. ‘I slept with someone,’ I said. ‘Not like this. A one-off.’

‘Someone you know,’ you said. Merciless.

‘Um—’

‘Don’t lie to me, Suzi. Don’t ever lie to me, OK? Promise me just that one thing.’ And that was potent, wasn’t it? When we were lying to everyone else.

‘A colleague,’ I said. The pause widened. ‘Damian.’

Damian. But the idea was insane – he lived miles away, in East London, and I hadn’t heard from him in months.

Back inside the house, I shivered, my feet wet from my inadequate boots. Nick was upstairs getting dressed, and I leaned against the Aga, trying to get warm. Piecing it all together. The feeling of being watched. The dropped calls, strange music, dead thing in my planter. And now this. At first I had thought, crazily, maybe it was you, but you were dead. If not Damian, the only other person I could think of was her.

Your wife.

Elle

Elle

She cleaned the room three times before the crawling on her skin subsided. That disgusting man, coming to her home and telling such lies. Patrick would never borrow money, he was the senior consultant in the obstetrics department. He earned a fortune! She wasn’t sure exactly how much, it was vulgar to ask, but enough for this luxurious house and four holidays a year, business class.

But yet. Scattered moments were coming back to her. Patrick coming in, seeing the post she’d left in a neat pile. You didn’t open this, did you? Tension dissolving when she swore she never would. Can you sign this, darling? Just moving some cash around, taking advantage of better interest rates.

Checking into a hotel, a card being declined. Rolled eyes, that bloody bank, another credit card given instead.

A holiday cancelled at the last minute – I don’t have time, darling. Too many patients. Can you ask for the money back?

She had thought nothing of any of these moments. But now, on her knees in the living room, a bucket of soapy water beside her, hands in yellow gloves, she began to.