‘That first night, when I met her at the bar?’

‘Yes…?’ Freya says slowly.

‘I got drunk. I mean, really drunk. And she had to take me home. She stayed the night.’

‘Robin!’

He holds his hands up in defence. ‘She said that it was all innocent. That I puked, and she stayed to make sure I didn’t choke on my own vomit, but…’ His face is pale. ‘I don’t know. Anything could have happened.’

‘You would have known! Surely?’

He shakes his head slowly. ‘I’d have thought so, yes. But I can’t remember anything.’ He stops. ‘No. No, I would have remembered if I’d slept with her. There is no way it’s mine.’

But Freya knows what he’s thinking. The dates. They tally. Exactly.

They eat another few mouthfuls in silence. Freya feels awful for making his day even worse than it was already.

‘Should I have kept quiet?’ she asks, softly.

Robin shakes his head, finishing his dinner and resting his cutlery on the bowl.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sure it’s not mine.’ But he sounds uncertain, like he’s trying to convince himself. Freya picks up his bowl and tidies everything away to avoid having to continue the conversation.

Robin’s phone beeps. She looks back and sees that he’s reading a message.

‘Simon Sharp’s autopsy has been completed. Results back tomorrow.’ He looks up at Freya. ‘You ever watched this Storm Chasers programme?’

She shakes her head.

‘Want to take a look?’

They carry their drinks into the living room. Freya is still finishing off the white, while Robin has moved on to a cup of tea, his car parked in the street outside.

Freya logs onto iPlayer and does a search. She’s glad of the distraction, to be able to move on to easier topics of conversation. She finds Storm Chasers – two series, ten episodes each – and loads up the first.

They slump back on the sofa. Freya quickly sees the reason why the programme reached its levels of popularity. It’s fast and exciting, the team driving across huge, wide, desolate American landscapes. One large shiny four-by-four, and a larger van, equipment poking out of the top. There are three main men – all in tight T-shirts, caps, sunglasses and shorts. They clutch laptops, patterned coloured graphs on the screen, as they charge down long roads.

And then they see it. A huge cone-shaped grey cloud, swirling, moving fast across the field next to them. Rain peppers the windscreen. The men exclaim loudly, clutching cameras. The tornado sucks up everything in its wake, yet they drive towards it, windscreen wipers on full blast. Dramatic music plays; Freya finds herself holding her breath as the men shout, ‘Go, go, go,’ driving faster into the chaos.