His mobile sounds again. It seems louder now. A swarm of angry bees, impossible to ignore.

‘You’d better answer, it’s your wife,’ she says.

‘Don’t say wife like that, as though she’s a stranger to you.’ But perhaps that’s the only way she can cope. Theirs is the ultimate betrayal.

He swings his legs out of the bed and sits up, turning his back on the crumpled sheets that smell of sex.

He says a cautious hello. He can feel his frown deepening, gouging lines in his forehead as Leah garbles down the phone while he bites his lip, keeping the words he really wants to say safe in his mouth.

‘I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.’ George cuts the call and reaches down to retrieve his boxers from the floor.

‘She thinks he’s back. That he sent the letter,’ is all he says.

‘Well, she would do. I said—’

‘She’s at the police station.’

He rapidly pulls on his clothes. Going to the police is something neither of them wanted. There are a lot of things neither of them wanted. A lot of things they crave, too.

How is he ever going to sort this whole mess out?

It’s slipping out of his control.

Chapter Eighteen

Leah

Now

At the police station, my breath is wild and out of control. I fight to slow it down. Carly sits rigid beside me. We haven’t spoken to each other since we got here. Since I nearly crashed the car trying to follow him. My hands twist in my lap. Already I cannot wait to rip these gloves off and scrunch them into the bin.

The foyer is light and bright but I see germs crawling everywhere. The dirt of a thousand crimes. The squalid remnants of scores of criminals marched through in metal cuffs and with steely stares. My chest tightens again. Sometimes I still feel my hands are tied, ankles bound. Eyes and mouth covered.

I cannot breathe.

Insects crawling between the layer of skin and denim that clads my thighs. In my ears, scurrying sounds.

I cannot gulp down air.

‘Let’s go,’ whispers Carly but her voice is thin, buried under the scuttling legs that fill my mind. I brush at my arms, as though brushing away creatures, but when I look at the floor it is empty save from the dog-ends and ash despite the large NO SMOKING signs.

Oh, those warning signs can carry the threat of incomprehensible dangers.

Behind the desk the officer watches me, a worried expression on his face. ‘You can come through—’

I shake my head. I cannot answer. The room starts to spin. I’m not going anywhere or saying any more than I already have until George is here.

Calm yourself.

Three things. Name three things.

Orange plastic chairs, tethered to the floor.

A notice stating abuse will not be tolerated.

Fluorescent light tubes stretching across the ceiling.

Calm.

When George finally arrives I launch myself into his arms. His suit is damp but I don’t care as I press myself against it as though I can melt into him. Meld into one substance. One person. Somebody else. Somebody stronger.