Christian looked at me again.

‘Is Marlon OK?’ he said.

‘Sleeping,’ I said.

‘I read him his bedtime story,’ my mother boasted, glancing at me, her red lips pursing with triumph. ‘That book that he loves. You know the one.’

Skyla was still with us, manning the phones, making tea, and the presence of this helpful, eager-to-please young outsider somehow made my mother and I more civil around each other. Skyla had never seen Christian before and she stared at him now with something like awe. He was a handsome man, even in his current state, a guy who had just spent a night without sleep and no doubt been more frightened than he had ever been in his life. To me he looked like a man who had been shipwrecked and crawled ashore, dumbfounded to discover that he had somehow survived.

Our guests drifted away. First Skyla, refusing my father’s offer to drive her home or get her a cab. Then my parents. And then there was just us. The same old us.

‘Christian?’ I said. ‘The lawyer called. Kevin? Apparently, the police have picked someone up and have already charged him with murder.’

It felt like small talk. He did not react beyond a weary shrug to indicate that this was already old news.

‘Can I make you something to eat? Can I …’

He was staring down at Buddy. The dog stared back up at Christian, looking sad. I went to him then, standing directly in front of him, but terrified to touch him.

‘Christian,’ I said. ‘Please look at me.’

But he slumped down on the sofa and covered his face with his hands. It took me a moment to realise that he was crying. He cried soundlessly, his hands over his face all the while, as if he could not bear to see me watching him weep. I waited until he had finished. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand and sniffed.

The dog jumped onto the sofa next to him, looking mournful. Dogs read your mood, and Buddy knew that Christian had been broken.

The sofa was a state. It was the first good piece of furniture we ever bought after my business turned a profit, the white Italian leather now had that chewed-up, lived-in look known only to homes with big dogs and small children.

And finally my husband stared at me and did not look away.

I expected him to say that he was hurt and furious. Or that he had spent the night in a police cell because of my stupidity. Or that he had nothing to do with the death of James Caine. I don’t know what I expected him to say. Anything but the terrible words he said.

‘Did you love him?’

He reached out and touched the dog, waiting for an answer.

And now I was crying too, a different kind of crying, not trying to hide it, because I wanted him to see what his words did to me.