‘What are you talking about? Why do we need to get our story straight? We just tell them what happened. We just tell them the truth.’

‘But they will want to hear the truth again and again and again. So we have to be sure that we keep telling them exactly the same thing. I’ve realised how they work, Tara. They keep asking you the same questions so they can see if the answers always stay the same. They were asking me about a watch. Was James Caine wearing a watch when we found him?’

I thought of Caine’s big Rolex. Was he wearing it? I had no idea. To be honest, you don’t notice a man’s expensive timepiece when the top of his skull has been bashed in.

‘I don’t know anything about a bloody watch, Ginger.’

‘Look – don’t get snippy – I’m not even meant to be talking to you, OK? I’m not meant to be talking to anyone about it. I’m only calling to say – don’t mention Spike to them, all right?’

‘Why would I mention Spike?’

‘You know why, Tara! Because the plan was that Spike would get this James Caine guy to back off the same way he got Omar to back off. My ex? Remember?’

‘But Spike never talked to James Caine.’ I hesitated. ‘Did he?’

‘No – of course not! So don’t mention Spike, OK? There’s no need. If they start digging into what Spike did to Omar, then it might not look so good for him.’

‘But I don’t like the idea of keeping anything back from the police.’

‘Jesus Christ – you can tell them whatever you like, Tara! But leave Spike right out of it, OK?’

And then she was gone.

Christian came back with Buddy. There were the familiar sounds of the Lab being carted off to the ground floor bathroom for a quick hose down in the tub and then Christian’s soothing voice as he dried Buddy off with his own dog towel.

They came into the kitchen and in the early morning Christian and I crept around each other with the heartbreaking formality of total strangers who had somehow found themselves living under the same roof. I offered Christian coffee. He politely accepted. We both looked at the dog. We had not had the argument yet.

But the big awful row was coming in, it was building, like a storm that was about to break. It was waiting for us, just beyond the strained good manners, the moment when we said all the things that, sooner or later, could not avoid being said. And I knew it was going to be horrible.

But for now there was a ceasefire.

My father – one of those late-twentieth-century men who felt that he had missed something by never fighting in a war – had once told me about the British and German soldiers who had played football on the first Christmas Day of the First World War. My dad said – they only ever did it on that first Christmas. He thought that was very significant. That was the only time, the first Christmas of the war, because after that they hated each other too much to have a kickabout in no-man’s-land on Christmas Day.