I had to sit there and listen to him tell me that his fling with Dina meant nothing. That it was simply a last-minute act of madness before the wedding day. He insisted that Dina’s death was an accident. Self-defence when she attacked him. He seemed to forget that I was there. That my memories of that day had returned intact. And his actions had definitely not been self-defence.

He said that the only reason he had covered it all up was because his mum had told him to. Apparently it was Celia’s idea to sweep it all under the carpet. Toby had wanted to come clean, but she had forbidden it. He said he was scared of her. That while she was his mum and of course he loved her, she wasn’t a person to argue with. He, Nick and his father all knew that you didn’t cross Celia unless you wanted a whole load of grief. How did I not know that about her?

I told Toby he was a grown man and should have made his own decisions. He should have stood by his wife. Should never have cheated on me in the first place. If he’d kept it in his pants then none of this would have happened.

Toby didn’t reply to that. Instead, he said he loved me. That he’d spent the past ten years of our marriage trying to make it up to me. That a day hadn’t gone by when he wished he hadn’t done what he had. But I didn’t believe a word. After all, when he thought that Nick was about to spill the beans to me, he had lied again, this time telling me that I had killed my sister. No. The only comfort that prison visit gave me was that I was lucky to be rid of him.

But it didn’t stop me mourning the loss of the husband I’d thought he was.

Back then, I didn’t have time to process what had happened to me. To mourn my sister. To grieve the death of my sham marriage. To accept that Toby had cheated on me with my own sister. To realise that a woman I thought of as a second mother had tried to kill me. It was all too much, so I buried it. Instead, I attempted to get on with regular things such as work and raising a family while dealing with the aftermath. At least I had Madeline and my father as support.

Madeline found herself in a similar position to me. Although she didn’t have a cheating husband and a dead sister, she did have a husband who had helped to cover up a murder and was facing a long prison sentence. It was more than enough to destroy their marriage and leave her on her own with two children. Consequently, we sought one another out.