I hated the clinical way he said that word, semen. ‘But they slept together earlier in the day. Couldn’t it . . .’

‘There was no other DNA found. And you yourself said you thought he’d confessed to you.’ He was calm, but I could feel tremors of irritation in him. I didn’t blame him.

‘I know. I was just . . . telling you what he said. I don’t know what it meant.’

He said nothing.

‘Isn’t it good to know everything that happened? Everyone who was there?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’ll . . . look into this?’

‘I’ll speak to Aaron, take a statement.’

‘OK.’

‘You should go now, Mrs Morris.’ I stood, clutching my bag, and he said, in a different tone, a kinder, more human one: ‘Ali. I’m really sorry this has happened. No one ever wants to believe it, when it’s them. But – it does happen. You know? It does.’

I didn’t know what to say, and so I left, feeling deeply ashamed of the person I’d become. Or maybe it was even worse than that. Maybe I’d been like this all along.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

‘I could stay longer, you know. A few weeks, even. There’s nothing for me at home now. The house is so quiet.’ My mother was folding towels, which she’d taken and washed and hung out on the line, all without me asking. I could have been annoyed at the presumption, but instead I just felt a deep relief that someone else was there to manage things. Minus the slight guilt I’d had when Bill was around, the sense that I would have to pay it back at some point.

Mum was due to go home the next day. I hadn’t heard a word from Bill since he’d gone. I didn’t even know if he was in the country. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Mike’s parents will be here from France soon, and . . .’

She nodded, understanding. Our parents had only met once, awkwardly, on the day of our wedding. Mum and Dad stiff and uncomfortable at the swanky hotel ceremony the Morrises had insisted on, Dad asking how much everything had cost, then raising his bushy eyebrows. That’s a terrible waste, Alison.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t been up to visit,’ I mumbled, seizing some laundry to avoid looking at her.

‘We both said some things when your father passed.’ That was an understatement. My father had died five years before, when Benji was five and Cassie was ten. Karen had come to stay to help Mike – and I could guess now what they’d done while I was gone, with my children and her son asleep in the house at the time.