“What do you mean?”

He paused, went to say more. Instead, said, “Nothing,” his eyes sparking.

Helen stood up, took a step towards him. “Look, Matt, I’m not lying. There’s something going on here and it… it must be Diana. I did see them kissing and I’m worried about Lydia. She’s young and playing a dangerous game that she doesn’t understand.”

“No, you’re lying! Diana would never – not with Lydia!” Before Helen could say anything else, he stalked from the room, leaving the coffee unmade on the counter.

Helen leaned against the table, hanging her head. Hugh needed to know what was going on. He couldn’t hide from this.

She knocked on the study door, but there was no answer. She pushed open the door. The room was empty. Perhaps he had gone upstairs to bed after all. She closed the door gently and approached his desk. What was he looking at this morning that had made him look so ill, so stressed? Had he finally found the photo? Something else?

She pushed the mouse and the computer screen jumped to life. There was now a password on it when there wasn’t one the other day.

What would Hugh use? He lacked imagination in most things. She tried their anniversary year. Nothing.

Then she tried the kids’ birthdays. Still nothing.

She was about to give up when her eye fell on an old photo frame perched on the end of his desk. It was askew, not in line with the edge of the desk as he would normally have it. The photo had been taken years ago when Lydia was a toddler. She was sitting on Hugh’s lap on a sunshine-happy day in Spain, wearing a swimming costume covered with watermelons and holding a dripping ice cream. Sitting next to him was Francesca, with a very young Matt in her lap, his face covered in ice cream and everyone laughing at the camera. Francesca was wearing a huge sun hat that covered her thick dark hair and big sunglasses obscuring her eyes. She looked like a voluptuous Audrey Hepburn, full of smiles. From what she remembered, Hugh had said that that had been their one and only holiday abroad and shortly after the photo was taken by a fellow holidaymaker, Hugh had developed severe sunstroke and had stayed indoors for the remainder of the holiday.

Helen had never questioned the photo’s existence, on show as it always had been on his desk. She assumed it was because of his children, carefree and happy on the beach, their cute faces bright with smiles.