She knew that if she asked Harry later if he’d been out for a drink, he’d tell her he had, and would no doubt admit who he was with; it would then be up to her to believe him or not, when he said it was nothing more than work.

As these thoughts fizzed around her head, it didn’t pass her by that she no longer loved her husband, so then why did she suddenly feel so empty? So betrayed?

She smiled at the girls again as they turned round to catch her attention. Harry should have been with them. They had wanted their dad to meet them crabbing and he hadn’t even returned her call.

Janie tossed the rest of her dinner into a bin.

Don’t make a fool of me, Harry.

That was one thing she would not tolerate. She might not love him any longer, but she would not allow her husband to humiliate her.

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was Friday night, and by the time Mia got home and crashed into the house, she expected her mum and Jess both to be in bed. She’d agreed to go to the pub with Bryony and a few other people from work and had drunk more gin and tonics than she had in a long while. Already she cursed the following morning, when she’d have a hangover, but at the time it had seemed like a good idea.

Pausing in the hallway, she listened. The blissful sound of silence, so she went into the kitchen and filled a pint glass with water. There was no alcohol in the house any more. She was the only one in her family who still drank. Her mum used to enjoy a glass of rosé, but not any longer, and maybe this was one of the reasons Mia enjoyed her after-work drinks so much. They were the only time she could forget, even if only temporarily.

She pulled up a chair to the small kitchen table and gulped back the water, sighing as she drained the glass and slammed it down on the kitchen table. She didn’t want to be living here, but she had no choice. She hadn’t even wanted to move back to the New Forest, and certainly nowhere near Lymington again. All three of them were suffocating in this tiny bungalow.

Suddenly a loud crash from the far end of the hallway made Mia push back her chair with a screech across the lino. She froze, briefly, before running to Jess’s room. When she got there she flung open the door, her heart beating fast as she scanned the dark bedroom, feeling for the light switch and flicking it on.

‘Jess, what the hell happened?’