So when I unlocked the front door after an arduous and unpleasant meeting, I could have done without the female voice in the drawing room.

For a moment the fear was deep and unequivocal, and immediately, the CCTV footage I’d been sent yesterday, from the night of the party, sprang to mind – Marcus sloping down our street in the early dawn, tousled and yawning, while I slept, unsuspecting, upstairs.

I still didn’t know where he’d been – but I could guess now.

‘But you’d be so good at it,’ I heard him say through the shut door. ‘I could really use your expertise.’

‘I can’t, Marcus, I just can’t.’

‘I’ll pay handsomely.’ I recognised the wheedling, persuasive tone. So used to getting his own way. ‘Who knows where it could lead.’

Ear to the door, I realised who the voice belonged to.

Not her too surely! I thought. Not involved with my husband. I burst into the room.

‘Nella.’ She nodded at me. ‘I’m sorry, Marcus, but there’s no way I can do it.’ Her arms were folded over her chest like a shield. ‘It’s against everything I believe in, you know.’

‘Do what?’ I asked brusquely. I’d had enough of beating round any bushes. The bushes that Marcus obviously liked to beat around himself. How long had I lied to myself?

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Marcus said, and I saw how tired he looked, and I saw another Marcus for a moment; more like the young man I’d met all that time ago, standing at the edge of a dance floor filled with Hooray Henrys dancing horribly to soul music they didn’t understand; pretending he was cocksure, but not really in the tribe. He hadn’t even begun to turn his shirt collar up yet.

‘Lena?’ I looked to her. ‘What job are you unable to take?’

‘It’s Marcus you need to ask, darl. Not me.’

‘I would have thought you’d be glad of the work.’ I sat on the arm of the chair Marcus was in, as if for all the world we were a partnership: that united front I’d long realised was a sham.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She narrowed her eyes at me.

‘You know what it means, Lena.’ I met her gaze. ‘You’re skint, aren’t you? It’s you whose been blackmailing me, isn’t it? Or trying to.’

‘Are you having a laugh?’ Lena spat, eyes snapping with fury. ‘Blackmail? I don’t know what you’re on about.’

I felt the sigh come from somewhere so deep inside me, it was like a seismic quiver through my body.

‘You want to look to your own, you two,’ she said, and she was more than furious, that was obvious. ‘What the fuck’s going on here, guys?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said meekly. ‘It’s been a difficult time.’

In fact, I had a pretty good idea who’d been behind the blackmail emails now. I just didn’t want to believe it.

‘D’you know what, guys’ – Lena stood, hands on her hips, spitting fury – ‘I always knew it wasn’t straightforward.’