I shake my head as though I can dislodge his words. ‘Why are you saying this? Just tell me what’s really going on. Please.’ I bend down to shake my brother-in-law’s shoulder, trying to get him to look at me. ‘Nick! Tell me the truth!’

Toby gently pries my hand away from his brother and turns me around to face him. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in, Zoe. But let me explain what happened.’

‘Firstly, I don’t believe she’s dead! And second… second…’ There’s a high-pitched whistling in my ears and I can’t seem to catch my breath. I stagger sideways and my knees buckle.

Toby puts an arm around me. ‘Come on, Zo, come and sit on the bed, put your head between your knees.’

‘This isn’t real, is it? What you said, it’s some kind of sick joke.’ As I sit down, I’m frantically trying to make connections between what he’s saying and what happened in the past, but I have no memory of what he’s accusing me of. I rake my hands through my hair, pushing it off my face and then letting it fall back down.

I sense Toby’s gaze on me. He’s about to say something else, but I cut him off.

‘What about the affair thing?’ I latch on to that as if it’s some kind of lifeline. ‘What’s that all about?’ I grip the end of the king-size bed and do as Toby suggested, leaning forward with my head between my legs, trying to breathe. The patterned rug beneath my feet is making my head spin so I close my eyes, but that feels even worse.

Toby sits next to me. ‘Like Nick said, the affair was just something I told Madeline to throw her off the scent.’

‘I can’t listen to any more of this,’ Nick groans from the floor. ‘I just want it all to go away. Get out of here, Toby.’

‘Fine,’ he mutters. ‘Nick. You need to pull yourself together. Zoe and I are going to our room now. But, you and I, we’ll talk about this tomorrow when you’re thinking straight and you’re not so drunk. Now go to bed and don’t talk to anyone until you’ve spoken to me, okay?’

He doesn’t respond.

‘I mean it,’ Toby says through gritted teeth.

‘Okay, yes, I heard you, Toby!’

‘Good.’

‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ I tell my husband.

‘Can you hold on till we get to our room?’

The short answer to that is no. I run to the en-suite bathroom and vomit several times into the toilet. Toby follows me.

‘I’m so sorry I had to tell you like this.’ Toby rubs my back while I empty the contents of my stomach. ‘If Nick hadn’t started losing his shit, we could have just gone on as normal.’