When she’d tidied up, she sat on the sofa and picked up her phone. She dialled Petra’s number again. This time it was answered, her friend’s cheerful voice shouting hello.

‘Hi,’ Molly said, ‘I’ve been trying to get you.’

‘Yes, sorry, I saw your missed call, but we were about to have dinner, so I thought I’d wait.’

Getting straight to the point, Molly asked, ‘Well?’

Petra’s laugh was genuinely amused. ‘Not big on the old foreplay, eh, Mol?’

This wasn’t the time for what her friend always described as her quirky sense of humour. Molly wanted to know if there was anything she could do, to take that look of desolation from her husband’s face. ‘Please, Petra,’ she said, ‘this is important.’

‘Fine. Well, I did go to the trouble of meeting Nicole for lunch today,’ she said, her voice a little cool and stressing trouble to make sure Molly was suitably grateful. ‘And I did pump her for information which, I have to admit, didn’t take much doing.’ Her voice thawed. ‘I hadn’t realised what a gossip she was.’

Pots and kettles, Molly thought, biting back the temptation to ask her to get on with it.

There was a long indrawn breath down the line before Petra continued with her voice quieter, as if she were afraid she’d be overheard. ‘There’s a lot of high-powered meetings going on, Nicole said. A lot of closed doors and whispers in the corridors. She said there were a lot of glum strained expressions.’

Molly held her phone tightly to her ear, afraid she might miss something. When there was silence on the other end, she said, ‘Is that it?’

‘What did you expect?’ Petra said, sounding slightly annoyed. ‘It confirms what you suspected, there is trouble in Jack’s office. Isn’t that what you wanted to know?’

‘It’s all a bit vague,’ Molly replied. ‘I suppose I’d hoped there would be something more concrete, something I could advise him on. This is…’ She wanted to say nothing, just vague unsubstantiated gossip, but her friend had done what she could, there was no point in being ungrateful. ‘… a bit of a help,’ she finished on the lie.

Petra seemed mollified. ‘She did hear one of Jack’s colleagues saying it was all to do with money, if that’s any help.’

‘Yes, that’s great,’ Molly said, lying again. It was a financial services business; it was always about money.

They chatted for a few minutes about more pleasant things, the new restaurant that had opened up, the sale that was on in one of Petra’s favourite clothes shops.

Molly only half listened and was grateful when her friend said she had to go, dropping the phone on the seat and staring into space. She was no wiser except it confirmed it was work causing Jack’s pallor and grim expression. Not another woman.