‘Nothing much, they just want to speak to anyone who knew the woman, nothing for you to worry about, Sal.’ He walks into the en suite and closes the door.

I’m confused – is his casual, just-another-day-at-the-office voice an attempt to keep me calm or confuse me? Pulling back the duvet, I move to the en suite door.

‘Tom,’ I call after him. ‘You didn’t know her, did you?’

My stomach hurts, acid leaks into my mouth. Surely Tom didn’t know the woman. Did he? Suddenly I have this picture in my head of him sitting having lunch with his ‘other’ family. The woman, the kid, Tom at the top of the table laughing out loud with them. The waiter comes along, Tom rushes to pull out his wallet. Hugs and kisses all round, plans for next week.

I rush to the closed door and push it open. With one hand leaning against the wall Tom stands peeing into the toilet.

‘You didn’t know her, Tom, did you?’

‘I wouldn’t say I knew her… as such.’

‘Did you ever meet her, Tom, did you? Did you ever see her since that one night seventeen years ago when that thing in your hand got us all into this trouble?’

I want to push him, knock his head off the tiled wall in front of him, the lovely shimmery silver tiled wall. I picture his blood dripping down it.

‘No, not like you think.’

Unable to stay in the same room, lie in the same bed, I take my pillow and drag the duvet with me. I was hoping he would come home and tell me the police just wanted to know about the kid. What he was like? Did Tom think the boy could have killed his mother? And all those types of question. I didn’t count on Tom knowing the dead woman. What if he did meet her and they rekindled their love from that one night of passion?

Shit, were they having an affair? No, don’t go there, Sally. Because if you do go there, you might never come back.

Lying between the folded duvet I rest my head on the pillow, hoping to fall asleep, but my mind is racing. If the newspapers said she was murdered sometime on Sunday afternoon, why were they questioning Tom? He was with them Sunday afternoon at the station, when the accident with the bicycle happened, when he was given the test to see if there was any alcohol in his blood. At least that’s what he told me.