‘So, look.’ Fin handed me a bowl of steaming baked beans and grated cheese. ‘Stay for the night if you want. I’ve got to go out anyway. I’ll take the sofa later. Bed’s comfortable enough – if a bit rickety.’

‘You should complain to the landlord.’

‘Hmm. I would’ – he spiked beans neatly with his fork – ‘if I could be arsed.’

I gazed at my own bowl, considering the offer. Where else could I go?

Normally, I’d have rung Ruby, but…

Who else was there? The monstrously smug Jan? Poor, clearly broke Lena and her out-of-control child? And I’d rather sleep in the car than ask Nella.

‘D’you mind if I do stay?’ I tried so hard not to sound like a child. ‘Just tonight, till I get sorted.’

‘Wouldn’t have offered if I did, would I now?’

It wasn’t an actual question, I realised. I took another sip of scalding tea; it was strangely comforting, in fact, to feel it burning down inside.

‘Fintan…’ I said, after a while.

‘Fin’ll do.’ He glanced up from his phone.

‘Fin. What’s your relationship with that – with your boss’s wife?’

He raised a brow. ‘Relationship?’

‘Rebekah, I mean.’ What did I mean? ‘Are you – you know?’

‘Not sure I do know.’ He met my gaze steadily.

‘Are you and her—’

My own phone beeped. Automatically I looked down, expecting Rex.

But it was Ruby.

Call me please. I really, really need to talk to you. I’ve just seen the Vicars. It’s URGENT!

My stomach lurched.

‘No, we’re not.’ Fin looked out of his back window, onto the dimly lit, landscaped gardens behind Bill’s house. ‘It’s just business, doll. Just a wee bit of business.’

Ruby

On the way home, I rang Zach – who didn’t answer – and then, with a trembling hand, Rocky, who assured me Zach was fine, just absorbed in ‘shooting the mandem up’ on the PlayStation.

Ali’s text message came through as I’d left the vicarage driveway:

I’ll get a cab from St Pancras. See you at home, Mutti dearest 🙂

Normally I might balk at the extravagance, but as I hurried through the murky streets – past the stucco-fronted terraced houses, gleaming white in the darkness, past the detached mansions, 4x4s in their drives, past the odd Ferrari here and there, expensive back-lit art glowing under tasteful lamps through huge sash windows – as I hurried back to the rougher, tougher ends, I let it go.

I decided to text Melissa, despite my initial instinct not to; ask her to call me.

I needed to talk about what the vicar’s daughter had said about Cecilia and the bullying, feeling the first flicker of hope in days.

The other thing: I left it for now.

There were definite priorities.

I stopped to send the text, and then I hastened home, to see both my children together for the first time since Christmas last year.

Melissa

When Fin left, I opened every kitchen cupboard.

I wasn’t proud, but I was desperate.