But the look on Owen’s face tells me what I’ve done.

‘I mean –’ I struggle. ‘It is me, it was me, but it’s not –’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ he breaks in, his voice anguished, and then he turns away from me as though he can’t bear to look at me, walks to the window. ‘I rang Jo, Isa. She said there was no bloody meet-up yesterday. It’s that man, isn’t it, Kate’s brother, the one who sent you roses?’

‘Luc? No, how can you ask that?’

‘Then who? It’s from Salten, I saw the postmark. Is that what you were doing down there with Kate, meeting him?’

‘He didn’t draw these!’ I shout back.

‘Then who?’ Owen cries, turning back to me. His face is contorted with anger and distress, his skin blotchy, his mouth square like a child trying not to cry. ‘Who did?’

I hesitate – just long enough for him to make a noise of disgust, and then he rips the drawing in half with one shocking gesture, tearing through my face, my body, ripping apart my breasts, my legs, and he throws the two halves at my feet and turns as if to go.

‘Owen, don’t,’ I manage. ‘It wasn’t Luc. It was –’

But there I stop. I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t say it was Ambrose without everything unravelling. What can I tell him? There is only one thing I can say.

‘It was – it was Kate,’ I say at last. ‘Kate drew them. A long time ago.’

He comes up to me, very close, and takes my chin, staring into my eyes, holding my gaze as if he’s trying to look inside me, into my soul. I try to brazen it out, to stare back at him, hold his gaze fearlessly – but I can’t. My eyes shift and falter and I have to look away from that naked pain and anger.

His face twists as he drops his hand.

‘Liar,’ he says, and then he turns to go.

‘Owen, no –’ I move between him and the door.

‘Get off me.’ He pushes roughly past, heads for the stairs.

‘Where are you going?’

‘None of your business. Pub. Michael’s. I don’t know. Just –’ But he can’t speak now, he’s close to crying I think, his face contorted with the effort of keeping his despair reined in.

‘Owen!’ I cry after him as he reaches the front door, and for a moment he stops, his hand on the lock, waiting for me to speak, but then there’s a sound from above, a rising wail. We’ve woken Freya.

‘I –’ I say, but I can’t concentrate, Freya’s cry, high and bubbling, drills into my brain, driving everything else out. ‘Owen, please, I –’

‘Go to her,’ he says, almost gently, and then he lets the door slam shut, and he is gone, and I can only crouch on the stairs, while Freya screams from above, and try to muffle my sobs.

He doesn’t come back at all that night. It’s the first night he’s ever done this – gone out, stopped out, without telling me where he was going and when he would be back.

I eat a lonely supper with Freya, put her to bed, and then I pace the flat in the growing darkness, trying to work out what to do.

The worst of it is, I can’t blame him. He knows I am lying to him, it’s not just the stupid, stupid slip I made over Jo, he has felt it ever since I left for Kate’s. And he’s right. I am lying to him. And I don’t know how to stop.

I send him a text, just one, I don’t want to beg. It says Please come home. Or at least let me know you’re ok?

He doesn’t answer. I don’t know what to think.

Sometime around midnight I get a text from Ella, Michael’s girlfriend. It says. I have no idea what happened, but Owen is here. He’s spending the night. Please don’t tell him I sent this, it’s not my business to get involved, but I couldn’t bear to think of you worrying.

I feel relief flood me, as real and physical a sensation as stepping under a hot shower.

Thank you so much!!!! I text back. And then, as an afterthought, I won’t tell him, but thank you.

It is 2.30 a.m. before I go upstairs, and even later before I finally cry myself to sleep.

When the morning comes, my mood has changed. I am no longer full of despair. I am angry. Angry at myself, at my past, at my own stupidity.

But I am angry at Owen as well.

I try to imagine the situation reversed – him getting roses from an old friend, an anonymous drawing through the post, and I can imagine myself seeing red. I can even imagine myself throwing accusations. But I cannot imagine myself walking out on my partner and child without telling them where I was going, without even trying to believe their side of the story.

It’s Monday, so I’m not expecting him to come home until after work. He keeps a spare suit at his office for emergencies, so there’s no need, except perhaps for him to shave, but the times are over when the Civil Service expected baby-smooth skin on their male employees, and in any case, Michael could lend him a razor if he needed one.

I go to the park with Freya. I push her on the swings. I pretend nothing is wrong, and I refuse to think about all the what-ifs crowding my head.

Seven o’clock comes … and goes. I eat supper, feeling the pain in my throat again, choking me.

I put Freya to bed.

And then, just as I am lying on the sofa, pulling a rug over me in spite of the summer heat, I hear it – the sound of a key in the door – and my heart jumps into my throat.

I sit up, wrapping the rug around me as if it can shield me from what’s coming … and I turn to face the door.

Owen is standing in the doorway, his suit rumpled, and he looks as if he has been drinking.

Neither of us says anything. I’m not sure what we are waiting for – for a clue perhaps. For the other person to apologise.

‘There’s risotto on the hob,’ I say at last, my throat sore with the effort of speaking. ‘If you’re hungry.’

‘I’m not,’ he says shortly, but he turns and goes down into the kitchen, and I hear him rattling plates and cutlery. He is drunk, I can tell by the way he cracks the plate down harder than he means onto the work surface, in the way he drops the knife and fork, picks them up, and then somehow drops them again.

Shit, I have to go down. He will scald himself at this rate – or set his tie on fire.

When I get to the kitchen he is sitting at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, and a plate of cold risotto in front of him, and he is not eating. He is just sitting there, staring down at the plate, and there is a kind of drunken despair in his eyes.

‘Let me,’ I say, and I take the plate, and put it in the microwave for a few seconds.

When I put it back in front of him it is steaming, but he begins to eat, mechanically, not seeming to notice how hot the food is.

‘Owen … About last night –’

He turns his face towards me, and there’s a sort of painful, naked pleading in his expression, and I see, suddenly, that he doesn’t want this any more than I do. He wants to believe me. If I offer him an explanation now, he will accept it, because he wants so much for this to all be over, for those accusations he hurled last night to be untrue.

I take a deep breath. If I can only find the right words …

But just as I’m about to speak, my phone rings, making us both jump.

It’s Kate, and I almost don’t answer it. But something – habit, or worry, I’m not sure which – makes me tap it to pick up.

‘Hello?’

‘Isa?’ Her voice is panicked, and immediately I know something is wrong. ‘Isa, it’s me.’

‘What’s the matter? What’s happened?’

‘It’s about Dad,’ She is trying not to cry. ‘About his body. They’ve asked … they told me –’

She stops, her breathing coming fast, and I can tell she’s struggling against sobs.

‘Kate, Kate, slow down. Take a deep breath. What have they told you?’

‘They’re treating it as a suspicious death. They want me to come in. For questioning.’

I go completely cold. My legs go weak and I grope my way to the kitchen table and sit down opposite Owen, suddenly unable to support my own weight.