He went to say more but then shook his head.

‘Go ahead,’ I told him. ‘Say what you want to say.’

And so he did.

‘You don’t get to lecture me about loyalty, Christian,’ he said.

‘I’m not lecturing you about anything. You do what you want. But just leave me out of it.’

‘And you don’t get to lecture about being faithful.’

Now I was offended.

I had never been unfaithful to Tara. Not even in the early days, when we started seeing each other at the paper, and we were not even officially together yet. I didn’t care. From the moment I saw her, she was the only one I ever wanted.

Spike threw the ball at me so hard that it spun me sideways.

I dropped the ball.

People were staring at us now.

‘Look to your own family, mate.’

I laughed in his face.

‘You know nothing about my family,’ I told him. ‘Mate.’

I picked up the medicine ball. I threw it at him.

And then I got it.

When Spike talked about being faithful, he didn’t mean me.

And this was how I knew that my wife was not having an affair.

Because when it was time for Marlon to go to bed that night, Tara placed her fingertip in his dimple and said, ‘I’m going to kiss you right there,’ and our boy placed his fingertip against her face.

‘And I am going to kiss you right there,’ he echoed, and their smiles came up like the sun.

That was the exact moment when I knew it was all in my head.

Because I trusted her.

Because I knew her.

Because I loved her.

Marlon trooped off to his room, Buddy padding behind him.

I stood in the doorway, looking back at her, The Call of the Wild in my hand.

‘Love you,’ I said.

‘Love you, too,’ she said, and I went back to place a quick kiss on her mouth, feeling my body flood with relief.

I knew. I just knew. Nothing and no one could ever break what Tara and I had together.

Because it was stronger than death.

TARA

The bedtime story of Buck’s adventures in the Yukon was coming through the child monitor when the doorbell rang. My heart leapt to my throat as I went to answer it but I found Big Dave standing there. On the kerb there was a brand-new Range Rover Discovery with its engine idling and Big Dave’s tarty wife – Suze? – in the passenger seat. Suze was watching me with her wary, unfriendly eyes.

‘You dropped this,’ Big Dave said. ‘When – you know – you weren’t feeling very well.’

My phone. Oh thank God. I grabbed it.

‘Thank you, David,’ I said.

‘Suze found it. She picked it up. Stuck it in her bag. Forgot to tell me until we were back at our gaff.’

Suze was still looking at me, as if she knew things about me, as if she saw right through me. But Suze could not have opened my phone, and she could not have seen any messages, and she could not have wandered at will through my other life, could she? My phone opened with facial recognition and, quite frankly, Suze and I could not look more different.