I make my way determinedly in the other direction. But as I emerge at the other side of the crowd, I see another fresh-faced police officer standing there, notepad in hand.

‘Were you a guest of this wedding?’

It’s clear that I was. No is not going to be an acceptable answer.

I nod.

‘We’re advising guests that there will be no wedding reception today, so everyone can head home. We do need to take down everyone’s name and contact details before they leave, however.’

‘Why?’ I say, as both a delaying tactic and an attempt to get information. I know I have to leave, but it will drive me crazy wondering what happened. ‘Did someone die?’

‘All I know is that a crime has been committed here today. Everyone present is considered to be a witness and we may need to contact you in the future.’

‘Well, I didn’t see anything. I was right at the back. Behind a tall man,’ I add.

‘I understand. Still, I’m required to get everyone’s details.’ His pen is poised above the page. ‘Name?’

I feel a pinch in my heart. Stephen will know I was here. The idea makes me so nauseated I’m afraid to open my mouth to answer him.

‘Name?’ he repeats when I don’t respond.

‘My name is Fiona,’ I say. ‘Fiona Arthur.’

17

TULLY

‘I stole them.’

A few months back, Tully had been watching an old episode of Dr. Phil about infidelity. The guest, a woman in her forties who’d been having an affair for eight years, was discussing the moment she decided to tell her husband. She talked about how she expected it to be a crescendo moment – something that would come out after much deliberation and planning, or perhaps in the heat of a fight. As it turned out, she just walked into her living room one day while her husband was watching the footy, sat down beside him, and confessed. She didn’t know why that was the moment when she felt she couldn’t contain it anymore. And Tully didn’t know why this was the moment she told Sonny her secret. It might have been the hangover. It might have been that she was feeling so warmly towards Sonny. It might have been because, after all these years, she’d finally reached her limit of lies.

‘What do you mean you stole them?’

It seemed fairly self-explanatory to Tully. She wasn’t sure how she could make it any clearer. ‘I stole them. Shoplifted. Took them without paying.’

Sonny’s face contorted as if he was going to laugh, but it stopped somewhere around a grimace. Then he looked back at the scarf in his hand, which still had the security tag attached. ‘But . . .’

‘It’s true,’ she said.

A few metres away, in the kitchen, the boys were semi-quiet because they’d been granted more screen time and an extra Kit Kat. In her peripheral vision, Tully could see Miles eating his Kit Kat directly off the kitchen table – a new eating technique that Sonny put under the ‘kids are weird’ umbrella, but Tully knew it was more.