‘Spike – stop!’

‘I am not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do,’ he said, working at my top again and, surprisingly deftly, he unhooked my bra at the back and my breasts were suddenly free and his mouth was on my mouth, his tongue forcing its way in. I twisted my head away and screamed at him.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘We both know you owe me, don’t we?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, it’s not true.’

‘Tara?’ he said, breathing. ‘You wanted Caine killed and you are glad the bastard is dead. And you are happy that somebody had the guts to cave in his rotten head. Aren’t you?’

My voice sounded pathetically small.

‘Yes.’

‘So who do you think really went to that hotel room?’ he said. ‘Who do you think ended that man because he wouldn’t leave you alone? Somebody did it, Tara! And it wasn’t your father and it wasn’t your husband. You know Ginger was terrified the law were going to come for me. You’ve heard the rumour, I know you have.’

Then I got my knee between his legs and brought it up as hard as I could. Not a perfect shot, too much impact was wasted on the top of his thigh, and he was still holding me very close, but it must have caught him on one side of his scrotum because the wind went out of him with a rush and he doubled up, moaning with pain.

I moved away from him, breathing hard.

I pushed my hair from my face, seeing the fight go out of him as he sucked up the pain. I did up my bra, pulled up my jeans and pulled down my top, all the while watching him try to ride out the pain. And then I laughed at him.

‘Oh, Spike!’

He looked up at me and in a flash I saw in his eyes that he suddenly wanted to be out of here, that he wanted to be somewhere else, and to never see me again in his life.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Talk to me about that night, Spike. Tell me all about it.’

‘No,’ he said, still hunched over with the pain, pulling up his tracksuit bottoms, his rough face flushed with shame and fear. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

He was rolling up his yoga mat, snatching up his phone, desperate to be out of this house, to never speak of this thing again but I followed him to the door as he fumbled with his car keys, all the swagger knocked out of him now.

‘You didn’t kill James Caine,’ I said.

And I left the rest unspoken, and I would leave those words unspoken forever, and I would go to my grave without ever saying them.

But Spike knew. I could see it in his terrified eyes.

He did not kill James Caine.

Because I did.

42

Tara

‘I just came from your home,’ James Caine had said, and I saw how easy it was for him to take everything I loved away from me, and I knew that I would never be free, and I understood how much pain I was about to inflict on those who cared about me the most.