I scrubbed the purple stains on the chopping board for a long time, until I realised it didn’t matter. Dominic’s theft would become my theft. Any extra failings would not be reckoned up. I left the board in the sink and went upstairs. Elizabeth’s night-light threw a reddish glow under the door, and I envied her sorrowful sleep. In the morning it would all be washed away, the clock would reset, Scarlet would return, and they’d start the game again. Not for me. I’d have to go to school, and there would be Dominic, knowing what he knew.

I went into the Harmers’ room and looked in the drawer. It was full of labelled VHS tapes, the kind my mother used to record Love Hurts. The labels were handwritten in biro: 8/7/89, 12/5/91 … I chose one at random, fed it into the machine, and pressed play.

It was a hotel room. Light streamed through net curtains. A woman lounged on the bed with her back to the handheld camera. The cameraman said something, a deep mumble I couldn’t make out, and she turned towards him, smiling under a heavy fringe. There was less grey in her hair, and the fringe was gone now, but I recognised Mrs Harmer straight away. The cameraman – surely Dr Harmer – reached out and touched her cheek, then dropped his hand and tugged open the dressing gown she was wearing. She was naked underneath, and pregnant. I stared at the beige drum of her belly, the swollen breasts lolling on top. She rolled on to her side, and the camera hovered over her, turning to catch the cameraman’s naked thigh entering the frame, then his cock, bright pink and jutting. They started moving together, gentle motions, as if the bed were a boat lifting on the swell. At a certain point, Dr Harmer put the camera down on the bedspread, pointing back at his wife, so the screen filled up with her shining curves, and every so often his curly head appeared beyond her shoulder, as if he was running behind her, trying to keep up.

I pushed my hand down my jeans and concentrated on myself. The room shrank. My body swelled to fill it. My hand cramped. I was pressed upon, contained. The pressure built. Dominic’s kiss was in my mind when the spasms ran through me, Dominic, even the name, a word I spoke out loud to myself, but late, missing the moment. I opened my eyes, and was vaguely shocked to see them still going at it, then confused by a glimpse over Dr Harmer’s heaving shoulder of a third figure looming behind them, a girl with red hair and a long, pale, mischievous face, holding – of all things – a magnifying glass.

‘What’re you doing?’