How I wished that was true, that I’d risen above the tidal wave that had engulfed us all, handed things over to the courts to decide, done my best for Mike while at the same time sending all my good wishes to Karen, who was clearly suffering, even if she hadn’t told the whole truth. But I hadn’t.

‘That’s not entirely true,’ I said.

When I finished telling him what I’d done, Bill was staring at me. His skin had gone pale and his hands were shaking. ‘Ali, are you serious? You – you told the police Karen slept around? That she lies?’

‘She does! Bill, you’ve been away for years, you don’t know. You remember how she was in college – well, it never stopped. There’ve been so many men. Married ones, even. She slept with my husband for twenty-five years!’

Something had frozen between us. That feeling I’d always had, that Bill saw me as good and beautiful and important, it had receded.

‘Ali. You saw her. The blood, the way she was – shit, can you really believe she wasn’t attacked?’

‘We don’t know anything for sure. She was drunk . . .’

‘Ali.’ He almost didn’t believe me, the way he said it. ‘Listen to yourself.’

‘She’s trying to destroy us! He ended things with her, she was hurt, so she made it up. That’s what I think. I know it doesn’t happen all that often, a false accusation, but it does happen! Why not this time?’

Bill was shaking his head. ‘I’ve never seen anyone in such a state. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it – hearing those screams, then going downstairs, and the blood on her – the look on her face. She was broken.’ He stared at me. ‘Ali. You don’t mean it? Tell me you didn’t do this.’

But I couldn’t. And I knew then that this thing between Bill and me, it had not escaped the slow erosion of everything, and that even when you think you’ve lost it all, there is still more that can be taken from you.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

‘Where’s Bill?’ Benji woke me at seven, bleary-eyed, his hair sticking up in the exact configuration of Mike’s. ‘He didn’t make breakfast.’

Bill had left in the early hours of the morning, the roar of his bike no doubt waking the elderly neighbours. I didn’t know where he’d gone. Maybe to Karen. Maybe back to Leeds. There it was. I’d done a terrible thing to Karen, and he couldn’t feel the same about me any more. ‘He’s gone, honey.’

‘What?’ Benji gaped and I felt a surge of irritation. How entitled were my children, that they took it for granted a total stranger would move into their house and wait on them hand and foot?