She toyed with her drink, still not meeting his eyes, but seemed eager to talk all the same. ‘My ex is a nightmare. I’ve told him there is no going back this time, but he keeps turning up wherever I am.’ She continued talking in a whisper as if he might be able to hear her – wherever he was – her eyes darting around the room just in case. ‘He said if I get somebody new, he’ll cut their balls off. He’s a total headcase, got a screw loose.’ The hairs on her arm were standing on end. ‘And he would you know, he’s got a terrible temper and he doesn’t know when to stop once his cage has been rattled. I asked him to get help, you know, but he point-blank refused, told me I was the one with the problem not him.’

Donny wasn’t quite sure how to respond. ‘He sounds like a right one. How did you end up with somebody like that? You seem like you’ve got your head screwed on. Men with tempers like that are trouble. It starts with words, but that’s not usually where it ends.’ He paused. ‘Did he hit you too?’ He realised that maybe he had overstepped the mark with his last question. He should have been more cautious, though it didn’t seem to faze Mel, who carried on talking as she nervously twiddled the ends of her hair.

‘Donny, you don’t know the half of it. He’s done some bad things to me; sick, twisted things. He thinks he’s untouchable. I’ve been out on a few dates since we split up and he always gets wind of it and turns up and warns them off. It looks like I will be single for ever, well, at least while he’s still around,’ she paused as if unsure whether to carry on. ‘You see, the thing is, he’s a copper. So, it’s not like I can report him, he’s got the boys in blue looking after him. They all piss in the same pot. I did phone them when he first started hitting me and nothing was done. It’s a waste of time. It’s like pissing in the wind.’

‘You should ask to speak to someone else, go higher than him, that will fuck him up.’

‘He is one of the higher-up ones, Donny. He’s older than me and he still thinks I’m some sort of kid. We got together when I was sixteen and he sort of looked after me when I was in a bad place. But I realised too late he liked the power. He’s a bully, Donny. A control freak.’