Spike frowned at her, and gently took the business card back.

‘I just want to understand what you want me to do. Tell him to leave Tara alone? Is that it?’

He stared at me. I looked at Ginger for help.

‘Remember Omar?’ she said.

‘Omar?’ Spike said, his voice neutral, as if he might not remember Omar, but below the surface, I could see that he remembered Omar very well.

‘My ex-boyfriend,’ Ginger said.

‘Your ex-stalker,’ Spike said, his tone still even. ‘Yeah, I remember Omar. Good old Omar. Whatever happened to good old Omar?’

‘He went away, didn’t he?’ Ginger said. ‘Do that again, Spike. That’s what we want. Do whatever you did with Omar to get him to go away and leave me alone. Is that too much to ask for?’

And now Spike flared with his own married impatience. ‘Darling, you have no bloody idea about what happened between me and your ex-boyfriend because you weren’t there, were you? And you never asked, did you? You did not want to know.’

For the first time, Ginger looked a little uncertain. ‘You talked to him,’ she said slowly. ‘You went to his place of work, and you talked to him, and you asked him to stop contacting me.’

Spike laughed, and there was an edge to it that made me think this was all a very bad idea. ‘That’s it! Me and Omar had a good old chin-wag. We had an excellent conversation. We had a frank exchange of views, Omar and I. We cleared the air once and for all.’ His blue eyes narrowed. ‘You have no idea what happened with Omar,’ he told his wife.

My stomach fell away as I wondered what Spike really did to make Omar leave Ginger alone. Now this did not seem like such a good plan. It felt like another misstep. And I was frightened.

Spike was a big friendly bear who doted on his wife and my family but there was something in the muscular bulk of him that reminded me of the police who had come to our door when Christian threw that bottle. Spike was like those cops – all smiles until you crossed some secret line that only they knew about and you knew that in one bad moment it could suddenly all be very different if that secret line was crossed.

‘I know it worked,’ Ginger said flatly. ‘And that’s all I care about.’

She crossed the room with the glass of red wine in her hand and kissed Spike on his unshaven cheek. He looked up at her with the same expectant face that Buddy got when he thought he was in line for a treat.

‘I know that thanks to you Omar never contacted me again,’ she said. ‘I know that he never called, texted or turned up on my doorstep with a bouquet of roses and a jumbo packet of condoms. I know the problem – and it was a real problem at the time, let’s be honest – ended overnight.’