Instead, I clenched my fists by my sides.

‘You were quite happy to ask for our – for his – help when you needed it though.’ My voice shook with anger, the words tumbling over each other. ‘For Willow. All that awful sucking up to us, the bribes.’

I was filled with rage now, even if it was partly at myself – but if I so much as moved towards Nella, I’d only be submitting to her idea of us: the idea that we, the Marches, were terrible, lowly people.

‘True.’ She arched a brow. ‘But that’s before I knew what he was really like.’

And then Nella actually closed the door in my face.

The second time in a week a Jackson had done that.

How vehemently I wished I’d never met them.

Melissa

On Wednesday morning, after Rex had left early for a heads’ meeting, I called in sick. It didn’t matter that I was on a final warning.

I couldn’t go in.

Good God, he was pleased with himself when he’d finished.

‘Do you think I’d ever have had a baby with someone like you?’

What had happened to him that made him this monster in sheep’s clothing?

‘But—’ I’d lain curled on my side. ‘All this time we’ve been—’

‘All this time – and I had the snip right after Cecilia. I didn’t want another bloody baby, and especially not with someone like you.’

‘What’s the snip?’ I’d asked dully. Impossible to imagine he’d ever been a vulnerable child himself. What happened in the womb of his parents’ love to curdle him so?

‘A vasectomy, babes.’ He’d straightened his jacket. ‘And you’re much too old to get pregnant anyway. All dried up.’ Adjusted his tie. ‘I might be late tonight.’

The realisation hit me between my eyes, like a baton coming down. Like a fist.

I had a picture in my mind, then, of all the women who ended up killing their husbands, who took a kitchen knife, who didn’t even know they had made that fatal thrust, who killed through hatred and sorrow, warped by a love laced with fear, a love that knew no other place to go – and then I knew.

I knew I was capable of killing him too.

So, instead of going to work, I lay on the poxy queen-size bed all morning, the blinds shut, the lights off, my hands crossed over my chest.

It had to be now – or it would be never.

In the gloomy afternoon, I dressed. I filled a bag, put my shades back on and slunk out. The wounded cur.

On the way, I parked up by the café near the Tube for coffee; not pleased to realise, too late, Lena was at the till. I felt a kind of chokehold round my gullet; I didn’t want to see anyone I knew.

‘Is, er, is Dores here?’ I heard her ask, after I’d ordered.

‘Afraid not.’ The young man was cheerful. ‘She’s away for a few days. Skiing in the Swiss Alps.’