We had talked briefly when we got home from the wine and cheese, with Giles being typically calming and also making me promise that I wouldn’t do anything hasty on Monday, regarding either quitting my job or killing Cameron. But there had been no time or inclination for heavy analysis of the situation and, to be honest, I was happy to defer the discussion. Aside from anything else, I didn’t want to embark on it with the mother of all hangovers. All I wanted to do was swallow Nurofen, drink water and hide from the outside world – and, more specifically, from Kerry – as much as at all possible until Monday.

The latter I largely achieved, with the exception of a few commiserative nods to fellow dog-walkers, during several hooded-shuffles across a rainswept Downs with Anthony. Those damp encounters aside, my only other weekend near-brush with humanity took the form of Bodhrán Bill, ringing the doorbell and then – apparently – running away as fast as his septuagenarian legs could carry him, but not before stuffing four tickets for An evening of reggae ’n’ rock with The Henleaze High Notes at The Eldon House, through our front door.

As a result of having managed to get through the weekend in relative solitude, free from any awkward neighbourly encounters, I was pleased to find myself feeling pretty OK as I boarded the bus to work on Monday morning, and even in possession of a faint, but very welcome, sense of relief.

However, the traffic was heavier than usual and the journey particularly slow, and as the bus hiccoughed its way along the Downs, there was more than enough time for my focus to shift from a weekend which could have been worse, to a Friday night from absolute hell. Consequently, it wasn’t long before my fragile sense of relief had had the living daylights kicked out of it by much stronger, unequivocally negative, emotions.

For a start, I felt physically sick whenever Kerry crossed my mind. Because although I still felt only anger and resentment towards Cameron, my thoughts regarding her were heavy with guilt and regret that she, and Giles, had become embroiled in a drama which would inevitably cause them both embarrassment and hurt.

Secondly, a return to work of course meant a confrontation of some sort or other with Cameron and – as someone with a preference for sidestepping confrontation wherever possible – I was absolutely dreading it.

It was therefore with no sense of relief, faint or otherwise, that I stepped off the bus at College Green and trudged the short remaining distance to work. Instead, I was accompanied by doom, gloom and nausea, which were still determinedly clinging to the tails of my pink raincoat, as I finally pushed open the glass doors of the office at 8:50 a.m.

Cameron’s desk was nearest the door and he looked up as I walked in.