‘Barbara will do it,’ he said, even though he wasn’t certain. Even though she hadn’t answered the landline since last night when she’d called him a ‘lying, cheating bastard pig’. Barbara never swore, so he knew she was upset, but he’d just have to persuade the old girl. He’d always managed to talk her round in the past.

Romily sighed. He could hear her tapping her pen against her front tooth, mulling it over. ‘It would have been more useful today, Geoffrey.’

He knew that, of course he did. Breach of fucking privacy, this was. But Romily said the paper was arguing it was in the public interest, and anyway, the damage had been done. The tabloids had been full of his indiscretion and the press had been camped outside his Mayfair home since first light. If he and Barbara had put on a united front today, the picture would have been used in all tomorrow’s newspapers. Now there would likely be another run of salacious stories.

‘Tomorrow,’ he promised. ‘First thing. Here or at the farmhouse?’

‘Hmmm.’ He could almost hear the cogs of Romily’s brain whirring. ‘I think it will sit better with your constituents if you bring Barbara back to Essex. You’re fighting to save your marriage and your political career. You need to appear contrite. Go and pick her up, don’t make her come running to you. Make your constituents feel like they matter.’

Four hours later, and now Geoffrey was knee-deep in a bottle of Irish malt. That bitch Anna had fucked him over.

He tried to ring the farmhouse again, but there was no reply. He imagined Barbara, sitting in the darkness, sipping her gin and tonic and ignoring him. Her refusal to engage enraged him, the impotent fury he felt at Anna finding its target in his wife. Stupid cow. She liked her expensive lifestyle, didn’t she? Her Marc Jacobs handbags and holidays at the Sandy Lane hotel. His job as an MP opened doors for them both. It won him seats in company boardrooms and consultancies and fat pay cheques. She hadn’t worked a day since they married, the lazy cunt.

He pressed redial again and the long, unanswered rings wound him tighter still.

How dare she ignore him? He was fighting for his political life. His wife should be supporting him. That was her fucking job. Not sitting on her arse, drinking her sorrows away.

Geoffrey Heathcote stumbled from his study and grabbed his overcoat. No ministerial car for him this evening. That privilege had been withdrawn pretty sharpish. His car keys were hanging on their hook and he reached for them, throwing and catching them in one hand. Tossing it up. Making a choice.