She watched him take off his jacket and hang it carefully on the back of a chair, struck once again by how thin he’d become. The yearly annual check-up his company insisted upon had only been two months before. She’d seen the report, she knew he was in perfect physical health. Or, at least, he had been. ‘Are you okay?’ she said into the silence before spooning coffee into two mugs.

‘Okay?’ he snorted. ‘Gosh, why wouldn’t I be?’ He hit his forehead so hard with the heel of his hand that she heard the sound across the room. ‘Oh yes, I remember why I wouldn’t bloody well be okay, why I’m a million miles from being even remotely near okay, because my wife got herself involved with a stranger, a stranger who was murdered, and now I have the police calling to the damn office because my wife… my wife is under investigation.’

She added milk and shoved his mug across the counter. ‘I wasn’t involved with him, Jack, and I’m not under investigation,’ she said, hoping she was right. ‘I’m simply helping the police with their enquiries.’ She allowed the bitterness in her voice to spill out. ‘Thanks, by the way, for giving them my phone number and not bothering to tell me.’

Without responding, he picked up his coffee and took it to the sofa. He sat, crossed his legs and switched the TV to a news channel.

She clasped her hands around her mug and lifted it to her lips. It would be nice to throw it across the room and watch the arc of coffee shatter his composure. ‘Where have you been, anyway?’ She knew it would have been with one of his friends, but she couldn’t resist saying, ‘Did you find yourself a pretty shoulder to cry on?’

He moved so suddenly that she was startled even before he threw the mug. It missed her head by inches, hot coffee splashing her skin, causing her to jump up with a yelp of fright. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him lose his temper. The man standing glaring at her with his hands clenched in fists was a stranger. Brushing away the splashes of coffee with a tea towel grabbed from the rail, she stared at him. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

‘Me? It’s you that’s lost your mind. How dare you accuse me? Just because you’ve the morals of an alley cat, don’t put that on me.’