‘Of course, Rav, I’ll be fine.’ I reach for the remote, switch on the television. Some intense drama begins playing, a man shouting at a woman. ‘I’ll just watch some telly for a bit.’ I debate whether to ask him where he is going, even though I know he will only lie to me. Would I usually ask him? Yes, I think, the usual Allie would ask him, because the usual Rav very rarely goes out in the evenings, not spontaneously anyway. ‘Where are you off to? I didn’t think you had anything planned.’

‘I … er, I’m just going to check on Mum. Seeing as I didn’t see her today.’ Rav stumbles over the words slightly, a blush appearing beneath the dark skin on his neck as he inadvertently glances upwards, to where the children are sleeping. ‘I won’t be very long – you stay there.’

‘OK.’ There is something off in the way he speaks to me, and I rearrange my features to mask the doubt that surely must be written all over my face. ‘I’ll wait up for you.’ Pasting on a smile, I turn back to the television, my mind going at nineteen to the dozen. If he’s gone, then I can check his account on the laptop. I wait until I hear the front door slam behind him.

Watching from the sitting-room window as Rav drives away, I make sure he really is gone before I grab the laptop and quickly sign into his account. I don’t know how long it will be before he returns from Avó’s, if indeed he has even gone to see her, so I work quickly, signing directly into his Gmail account. Straight away, I see I was right all along. He is going to take the children. A flight confirmation sits in his unread messages, from British Airways. I click on it, my fingers shaking, as I scan the contents. Two adults, two children, flying to Mumbai on June 23rd, with a connecting flight to Dabolim. The total price is at the bottom, with the details of the credit card he has paid on. It’s an American Express card, a card that he must have ordered without me knowing. I feel sick, dizzy, and I have to close my eyes and press my heels into the floor, to try and ground myself. How could he do this to me? My eyes ping open, and with a heavy heart I go back into his emails, trying to see what else I can uncover. There is nothing sinister – apart from the flight booking – and I sit there, letting the heat of the laptop battery burn into my thighs.