It was all making sense to me now, so much so that I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen it before. Blind, distracted, dazzled as I had been all the way through. Looking at the wrong thing all this time. Mike had doused himself in aftershave that night. Of course – he’d wanted to shower before dinner, and I’d nagged him not to, because there wasn’t time, not knowing he’d been with Karen just minutes before I got back. He’d been trying to cover up the smell of her, of sex. His jumper would have reeked of aftershave, obliterating any other smell. And it had been sitting there, conveniently, on the decking, in a discarded heap.

‘What now?’ I risked. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to be with her.

She shook herself all over. ‘I feel like I’m going mad. I was so sure. So sure it was Mike.’

I had felt that way too at times. ‘I’m sorry.’ My voice cracked under the weight of it, how inadequate those syllables were for everything I had to say sorry for. ‘I should never have said those things. I should have believed you.’

She lifted her chin slightly. ‘But it wasn’t true, Ali. What I said. Was it?’

I swallowed. ‘Maybe not. But you didn’t . . . you thought it was him.’

‘I did. I hope you understand that.’

‘Of course. I should have – well, it was unforgivable, what I did. I’m fired, basically. My career’s over.’

‘What a mess.’ Karen was strangely detached. ‘What a bloody mess, eh. What will I do?’

‘We should tell the police everything. Callum confessed to me, I don’t think he’ll fight it. Tell them you remembered the truth, and then they can drop the charges against Mike.’

‘But Mike’s sick. Right?’

‘Yeah. He’s very sick.’

‘And Jake is the only donor.’ She sounded like she was puzzling it all out in her head. ‘OK.’ She pushed her hands off her thighs lightly, as if getting organised. ‘I’m going to tell them. That it wasn’t Mike, it was – him. Then you and I are going to see Jodi. She’s all by herself, and you shouldn’t be alone when you’ve had a baby. We just aren’t meant to do it.’ Maybe that was a dig about all those years ago, the day Jake was born, when I’d dragged Mike away from the hospital to immediately have sex and try to get my own baby. Had I known, on some level, that Jake was his? Or was I just so selfish I didn’t care? I’d never know. What a store of hurts we had from each other, Karen and me. Like a set of scales that were balanced with stones.

Karen stood up. ‘Will you come with me?’ she said. ‘Will you help?’