‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Eric. I’m going to make sure our celebrity ski goes ahead. I’m going to phone round the agents that are still in business hours time right now, and make sure their babies don’t pull out.’

Eric was amused. She was mad. ‘Go ahead. I’ll catch you tomorrow. And by the way, if I were you I’d go the back entrance into your house. They’ll be waiting for you at the front no matter what time you get back. Remember: don’t say anything.’

‘I’m not a child, Eric. I’ve dealt with the press on this scale before.’

Oh yeah? he thought. In your dreams maybe, lady. He left her in the office very much a child, and one that saw her toy being broken in front of her eyes.

The darkness was soothing. With his eyes wide open like this it lapped round the edges of his vision like a thick black oil. Only the tiny red light on the radiator thermostat intruded into this velvety balm. Sleep was not happening for Sam. Beside him, Katie’s regular breathing told him that she had escaped into oblivion but he was far from such a release. Neither of them had known what do after Katie’s question. They had sat unhappily in the kitchen trying to find a road out of this nightmare, and Katie had held his hand silently for an age, as though her touch could make it all go away.

‘You’re not well, Sam,’ she’d said to him when she thought the silent contemplation was enough.

He’d looked at her and nodded. ‘I know. But what does that not being well mean?’

‘It means we’ll find a way to make you better.’

‘That’s not my point.’

‘I know.’

She’d let his hand go for a second and run her fingers through her hair. ‘Can I tell you something?’

He’d blinked at her.

‘Do you think I would be sitting here at this table, with our two precious children slumbering upstairs in their beds, if I thought you were even capable of what’s going through your head right now?’

He was unmoved.

‘Then why did you ask me?’

‘You looked like you wanted it said.’