Sensing a frisson of pleasure from Clare, I protest: ‘What? That’s ridiculous, I haven’t done anything!’

‘Look,’ Clare says, ‘we all know Jamie wouldn’t harm Kit. He’s not capable of it. That will be obvious to the police.’ I don’t care for her disdain, but she continues to adjourn any confrontation about the affair and, for that, I’m supremely grateful.

Melia’s attention moves from Clare to me and back again. ‘Please just go,’ she whispers. ‘Both of you.’

‘We’re going. But just answer me one thing first, Melia.’ Clare shifts closer to her, her eye contact insistent. ‘Answer me honestly . . .’

‘What?’ Melia asks, and she gazes at Clare as if with a morbid fascination she cannot hope to break.

‘Do you really not know where Kit is?’

There’s a moment of acute shock. From the street, a car engine starts, a kick of dissent. What Clare just said may not have been intended as an insult, but it’s certainly received as one and enraged eyes meet mine before Melia turns on her: ‘I beg your pardon. Why would I be in a state like this if I wasn’t terrified something horrific has happened to him? Where is it you think I think he is? On a stag weekend in Vegas?’ Her tone is hostile, haughty, but she can’t sustain it for longer than a few seconds and suddenly her face collapses and she’s weeping into her hands.

Unable to watch her, I focus on Clare, terrified she’ll escalate the argument, but again she wrong-foots me with her response. She places a gentle hand on Melia’s shaking shoulder and her tone dips in apology: ‘Oh, Melia, there could be all sorts of reasons for his going to ground. I’m sure there’ll be news soon. Good news. I’ll leave you, I didn’t come here to upset you, but let me know as soon as you hear anything. Or if you can think of any way I can help.’

‘Me too,’ I say, sidelined by that insistent first-person singular, and we leave her with her face in her hands. I am bewildered by Clare’s behaviour. Is it purely reactive, the effect of Melia’s torment dwarfing her own? Or is it more strategic: she’s waiting for a bigger stage on which to expose us for who we are? To assemble witnesses to support her?

I think, for the first time, Will she take revenge?

‘Why didn’t you mention—’ I begin, but she interrupts.

‘That’s my business. I don’t answer to you anymore.’

‘You never did,’ I say, before I can stop myself.

She comes to an abrupt stop, one foot in front of me to force me to do the same. Ah, there’s to be an announcement. ‘I never did, you say? Right. Life won’t be so different, then, will it? In case it’s not clear, don’t think for a second I’m forgiving you. We are over.’

We start walking again. I imagine the bristling hostility as a force field around us: if a third party reached towards us, they’d burn their fingers. Heavy with guilt, I remind myself that the fact that I have to grovel is at least part of the reason why I strayed in the first place.

‘Clare, about my staying in the house a few days, I—’

She interrupts with a snort of contempt. ‘Stop begging, it’s pathetic. Yes, you can stay in the house. I’ll support you till you sort out this crap with the police. It’s obvious you’re not a murderer and the last thing I want is people thinking I’ve been living with one all these years.’

‘Thank you. I’m grateful.’ And I really am, in spite of all my resentment. In spite of everything.

‘But as soon as you’re in the clear, you need to go. And when you do, I don’t ever want to hear from you again.’

I suck my lower lip. ‘I understand.’ As we reach Prospect Square, I’m conscious of ravenous hunger. I haven’t eaten since early morning. Since then, only coffee and wine. ‘Will we . . . will we still eat together?’

She rears up with fresh anger. ‘Yes, Jamie, what shall I rustle up? Boeuf bourguignon all right? Or would you prefer the fish of the day?’

I keep my voice neutral. ‘I meant, I’m going to cook – we’ve just had all that food delivered. Would you like me to make something for you too?’

‘No thanks. I’d rather starve.’

We’ve halted on our doorstep. As she fiddles with her key, she gives an unpleasant scrape of a laugh and I can tell she wants me to ask.

‘What?’ I oblige.

‘I’m just thinking that there’s one thing I agree with Melia on.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I hate you as well.’

And it hurts. Even in the maelstrom of the rest – the pounding of my head, the ghastly arrhythmic drum of my terrified heart – it hurts.

31

28 December 2019

I wake up on Saturday wretched and unrefreshed in one of the spare bedrooms (one of the spares: I know how that sounds). Though I can use the second bathroom (second bathroom: ditto), I have to enter the marital bedroom for fresh clothes and when I do Clare assaults me on sight. And I mean assault: first, she’s slapping my face with open palms, then she’s beating my chest and shoulders with closed fists, the whole time repeating her sentiment of last night: ‘I hate you!’

‘Stop!’ I try to seize her arms but she goes on lashing out, striking a particularly unwelcome blow to the tender area of bruising left by Kit’s skull. Eventually, she crumples away, sinks onto the bench seat at the end of the bed, breathing hard.

‘How can you have fallen for such a bloodsucker, Jamie? How?’ She groans. ‘Stupid question. It’s not your blood she’s sucking. Sex. Always sex.’

Rubbing my wounds, I don’t point out that she was the one who introduced us. She would only – quite reasonably – tell me to shut the fuck up. ‘Come on, Clare, something bigger is going on than some meaningless affair – otherwise you wouldn’t have felt sorry for her last night. You didn’t behave like this with her.’ I run fingers over my stinging left cheekbone, feel the raised lines where her fingernails have broken the skin. There are going to be scratch marks.

‘Of course I felt sorry for her,’ Clare cries. ‘She thinks her husband’s dead and I’m a decent human being! And why does it have to be a showdown between women? You’re the one I’m confronting here.’

‘I know, but if you could not do it physically.’ As I gather the clothes I need, I notice there’s a packed overnight bag by the wardrobe. Downstairs, as I drink my morning coffee, I hear snatches of phone conversation – ‘Just one night, maybe two’ – and try to make sense of the thuds and slams that succeed it. When she comes down, the bag bumping at her side, I ask where she’s going.

‘If you’re going back up to Edinburgh, won’t all the trains be booked up for New Year’s? You won’t get a seat, it’ll be awful standing the whole way. Stay here, please. It’s your house.’

‘I know that,’ she snaps. ‘Are you offering to leave instead?’

I make no reply.

‘That’s right, you have rights. I’m flying, for your information, so there’s no need to concern yourself with my comfort.’