“This year. January, February . . . Early this year—that’s when he started complaining about it, but this sudden hatred that just makes no sense—that’s really very recent.”

“When did it start?” Gibbs asked her.

“The first time he said he couldn’t bear it anymore and we were going to have to move was . . .” Jane stopped. Her pink face reddened. “Oh,” she said. “I’ve only just realized.”

“What?”

“It was last Monday lunchtime that he said it. Just after we’d seen on the news that Damon Blundy had been murdered.”

CHAPTER 9

Sunday, July 7, 2013

I CLOSE THE DOOR of the spare room behind me, lean against it and exhale slowly, until there’s no air left in my lungs to expel. Even then I try to squeeze out some more, until I start to feel faint. Only then do I allow myself to breathe in.

Alone in a room, at last. I told Adam and the children not to disturb me, that I won’t be able to concentrate on emailing Ethan’s class teacher if they do. I felt sick saying it. It’s so much harder to lie when you’re known to have lied. To people you love, anyway. You feel as if your false words are shining in neon all around you.

I never found it hard to lie to my parents. That felt good—like killing a monster.

And now there’s a different monster trying to wipe out my new family—the family I love without reservation, the one Adam and I have made together—and I’m too afraid to kill it. I can’t destroy it without destroying myself, because it’s inside me. It’s part of me: the part that’s whispering, Email King Edward. Tell him yes. Agree to the blindfold and the silence and everything—all his conditions. You need to find out who killed Damon Blundy, don’t you? How else will you find out? The police will never work it out—they can’t possibly. They don’t know what you know, and you’ll never tell them. What you told them already was hard enough.

If only I could resign myself to not knowing . . . I would vow never to email King Edward again, never to be unfaithful again. To save my family. That’s what I want to do. It’s what I must do.

In my right hand, I’m clutching the piece of paper that’s my official reason for being in this room: Ethan’s failed test from school, for which he got zero out of a possible ten marks. I’m supposed to be drafting an email to his teacher about it, asking her to explain to him where he went wrong, and reassure him that he mustn’t worry about having misunderstood.

Do that first. Something normal, domestic. That’ll make you feel better.