Evie gasped. ‘Had she told her boss?’

‘At that point, no. I urged her to tell him the next day.’

He got up and started pacing back and forth in front of Evie as he spoke. ‘The next morning the DC summoned me into his office. Veronica was already in there. He was angry that Veronica had confided in me about what had happened. Otherwise he’d probably have dismissed her and hushed the whole affair up. He said if I ever told anyone what had actually happened between them my career would be over.’

Evie opened her mouth.

‘But if I were willing to marry Veronica, he’d recommend me for promotion to a dream posting, as long as it was far away from Kenya.’

‘He said all that? Just like that? What did Veronica say?’

‘Nothing. She sat there in silence, looking at the floor.’

‘So what did you say?’

‘I told the DC I wanted to stay in Africa. I wanted to be promoted on my own merit.’

‘And?’

‘He told me if it was based on merit I’d have been promoted two years earlier and unless I married Veronica and got her out of his way I’d continue to be overlooked. Not an ounce of remorse. He bumbled on about about how he’d been caught on a sticky wicket and that things had gone further than he’d intended. The fact that he was Veronica’s boss and married with five children had no apparent bearing on the matter. The unspoken implication was that Veronica was a latter-day Jezebel.’

Evie bit her tongue – her saying that it was a pretty accurate description was unlikely to be well received.

‘I was stunned. I asked Veronica what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to marry me. Begged me to agree. So I did.’ He sighed. ‘I’m not proud of it. I was young, foolish and in need of a wife. She was alone, pregnant and facing the certain loss of her job.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

Arthur was still pacing up and down. ‘We left Nairobi a few weeks later, as man and wife. Veronica set out to make my career advancement her personal mission. She became the perfect administrator’s wife, playing the part so well she’s forgotten where fiction and reality meet. I’m the only one who’s ever seen the other side of her: the frightened little girl whose childhood was stolen by a drunk in a filthy Nairobi shanty. I’m the only one who ever witnesses her when the black cloud descends and she’s filled with self-loathing to the point where she sometimes wants to take her own life.’

‘She’s tried to kill herself?’

‘Threatened to.’ He shook his head. ‘But I’ve no doubt she’d do it if it came to it.’

‘What about the pregnancy?’

His face clouded. ‘Veronica lost the baby. And she can’t have any more. She saw that as a punishment. Another reason to hate herself.’

Evie felt a twinge of guilt, remembering how she had put Veronica on the spot the night before about her and Arthur being childless.