He bolted his drink like it was medicine to be forced down, and then he shook his head.

‘But you broke my heart,’ he said.

We went to bed early now.

I lay there on my side of the bed with the other half empty, the house in darkness, waiting until nothing was coming from the living room but the sound of Christian sleeping on the sofa, a soft wheeze that was more like rhythmic breathing than snoring, and when I was quite sure that the house was sleeping I got up and went to the kitchen to check my second phone.

Buddy was in his basket and grunted in his sleep as with a murmured apology, I felt deep inside his cushion and retrieved the phone that James Caine had given me. Crouching by the basket, I turned it on.

You have one missed call.

I went to contacts. There were only two numbers on there – the number for a dead man and the number that I had added. When I called I expected it to go straight to voicemail, but it was answered after one ring.

‘Don’t call again,’ I whispered. ‘Please. We’re done.’

There was a moment of silence and then I hung up. The only light in the kitchen was the screen shining on my face. It died as I turned off the phone. Buddy opened his eyes and stared at me, black eyes shining in the darkness, wondering if he was having a dream, as I slipped the phone back deep inside his cushion.

‘Mama?’

Christian was standing in the doorway with Marlon in his arms. He turned away with a look of disgust and I went to the corridor, listening to him settling Marlon down, licking the lips of my cotton mouth.

He brushed past me and went back to his living room. I waited for a moment and then I followed him. Our home seemed to howl with a terrible silence.

He was back on his sofa, staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head, as if he knew that there would be no sleep tonight.

‘Can I explain to you why I have that phone, Christian?’

He did not speak.

‘James Caine gave me that phone because he gave all of us phones,’ I said. ‘You know. His women. His girls.’

Christian winced as if he had been slapped.

‘And I never used it – not once – for any of the reasons he wanted me to use it,’ I said. ‘Not for setting up secret meetings with him in hotel rooms. Not for dopey little love messages. Not for sex texts. Not for sending him pictures of myself.’

Christian’s eyes flicked towards me.

‘But I used it for something else,’ I said. Tell him now, I thought. Tell him everything if there’s going to be any chance of holding this family together.

‘I used the phone Caine gave me to see how much it would cost to have him killed,’ I said. ‘And to find out if there were any takers.’