‘Please, no. She needs our help, that’s all. I don’t know about you, but she’s the first person I’ve pulled half dead out of the river. I’m genuinely offended that you would think that of me,’ Adrian said.

‘I just don’t understand. You punched Constable Jarvis and now we are waiting here, why? So you can catch him in the act?’

‘Whatever gets the job done. This won’t stop; this kind of behaviour doesn’t stop. We need to stop it. Angela will keep making excuses for him and he will keep getting away with it.’

‘I’ve just never seen you like this. Does she remind you of your mum or something?’

‘So first I fancy her, now she reminds me of my mum? Come on, Grey. Give me a little credit. Yes, she is young. She deserves a better life than this, don’t you think? I don’t really appreciate the implication that I have some ulterior motive here.’

He nodded at her to start the car. She did without question and pulled the car into a U-turn, heading back to the Corrigan house.

Adrian’s rage was only magnified by Imogen’s remarks. Not letting criminals like this go unpunished should be top of their list. There was a huge correlation with domestic abusers going on to commit other, more serious crimes. In America, many of the mass shootings were committed by men who had previously been brought in on domestic abuse charges. Something about the mentality of a person who would beat someone physically weaker than them on a regular basis was dangerous and not limited just to beating up their wives. As Simon Glover could attest.

‘I don’t want to argue. I know this must be hard for you, but you can’t behave like this. Let’s at least drive round the back so we can see if anything is going on inside.’

‘Fine,’ Adrian said, aware that every second they delayed was maybe a second Angela didn’t have.

As they drove past the Corrigan house via the back road it looked empty. They must have been in the one of the rooms not visible from this aspect. Imogen let out a frustrated sigh.

‘You don’t have to be a part of it if you don’t want. Drop me off here and I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ She turned into the street where the Corrigans lived. ‘Just don’t do anything stupid.’

Imogen stopped the car and Adrian jumped out. He walked towards the door and put his ear to the glass panel to see if he could hear anything inside. There was some shouting, followed by the muffled pleading of Angela. He looked in through the lounge window, but he couldn’t see anything. He had to make a decision.