‘Went to get drinks. Fancied his chances. Snogged her already. Not fair, is it? He had you and Karen already, then he wants to score with Rasby too? What’s so special about him, for fuck’s sake? What’s wrong with me?’ I could picture it. Martha, drunk and alone in the garden, waiting for Mike to come back. Callum creeping in, maybe after I’d spoken to him. Drunk, sloppy. Angry at Mike. His bear-like hands trying to quiet her. Around her slender white neck. Oh God.

I felt sick. And Callum, my old friend Callum, was sitting across the room from me, his face puffy and red, the skin dry and cracking, and I had to decide now what to do. There was Jodi in the hospital, having her baby, all alone.

I stood up, feeling my legs like jelly beneath me. What could I do? Throw Callum under a bus? Call the police down in Bishopsdean right now? They’d hardly arrest him, all the way up here. Would they send local officers? He’d been walking around for weeks now, free. I could tell Jake, but he was in prison, precisely to stop him attacking the man who he thought had hurt his mother. I realised there was one person who had the right to adjudicate over what happened next.

I spoke quietly. ‘Cal, let me get you some water, OK? I know this is hard.’

He nodded, rubbing a hand over his face. He looked awful. Twenty years older than he was. Slowly, I inched past him to the door, then out into the kitchen. My sandals clattered on the floor tiles, the ones I’d envied just a few weeks before. My bag was on the kitchen island, and in it my phone. I held my breath – no sound from Callum in the other room. I turned on the tap to run, then took the phone out and started dialling Karen’s number. I was just listening to the ring when a clammy hand closed over my mouth.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I struggled away from him, repulsed by the meaty tang of his skin. His wedding ring knocked against my teeth. ‘Cal – what the hell!’

He moved his hand from my mouth to my arm. I could feel the fingers digging in. ‘Ali, you can’t. Can’t tell anyone. S’over now. S’done.’

‘It’s not over! Mike might go to prison and . . .’

‘I’m not going to prison. You hear me! I’m not.’ It was absurd. Here I was with my friend and he had wedged his body behind me, pressing me against the kitchen island. I’d never realised how powerful he was, the stockiness of his short body. He gripped the phone, squeezing it from my hand, smearing it with his prints.