At least the mums order hot drinks and I’m grateful for the noise of the steamer, which I normally hate, that mechanical screaming that obliterates all human speech within range.

But in the first interlude, Regan continues her inquisition. ‘How long has it been? Your friend, I mean.’ She begins sorting the recycling as we chat and I help in a desultory fashion, flattening cartons and picking out the non-recyclable crisp packets.

‘Almost a week.’

‘So how long before someone’s, you know, presumed dead?’

‘I don’t know. Years, I think.’

‘Years?’ She stops what she’s doing and raises her voice. ‘How are his family and friends supposed to live in limbo like that? Not knowing if he’s been viciously murdered?’ At this, a couple of the mums look up, frowning – as if their uncomprehending babies are going to be contaminated by our unsavoury conversation. ‘Do they have to keep his job open for him?’

‘I imagine so, legally, but between you and me I doubt he’s any great loss to the insurance sector. He thought he was doing them a favour just gracing them with his presence.’

It feels good to be able to say something critical about Kit. Just because someone’s missing doesn’t mean they aren’t still a twat.

I don’t say that to Regan, obviously.

My phone buzzes. Dad has left a voicemail assuring me that he’s happy to accept a neighbour’s invitation on New Year’s Eve, before making a surprising admission: ‘I wondered, in France, about you and Clare. I hope you can work it out, she’s a great girl.’

I imagine Clare hearing that and teasing him for calling her a girl. Making no secret of the fact that she’s pleased. I wonder if they’ll keep in touch after news of our separation circulates. How could he not side with her?

Regan misreads my melancholy expression as being related to the mother-baby tableau in front of us. ‘I bet it puts things in perspective, doesn’t it, this business with your friend? Makes you reassess. Did you ever want kids, years ago? You and your partner?’

She makes it sound like a geriatric’s long-distant dilemma. I haven’t told her I’ve split up with Clare and I agonize for a few moments over whether it could cast doubt on my character if I’m later found to have deliberately misled her. I tell myself not to overthink this stuff. ‘No. Way too scary.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she agrees. ‘It’s totally the most terrifying thing I can imagine.’

I manage a blissful thirty seconds deluding myself that cuddling an infant while chatting over the top of its head with another adult is indeed the most terrifying thing I can imagine, but then I remember DC Merchison on my doorstep that morning, all too determined to step over the threshold and find a way to prove his gut instinct that I’m not to be trusted. That I’m telling him everything except what might actually be useful.

*

Even though Regan sends me home early, there being so little business after the mums’ group, by the time I board the boat home it’s already dark as midnight. The bar staff are offering complimentary slices of chocolate log and cleaning up in tips. Festive songs play: Good tidings we bring . . . which makes me think of Melia of course. I imagine myself arriving at St Mary’s and walking up Royal Way, past my turning into Prospect Square and on to the high street towards Tiding Street, until I’m standing under her window like a stalker.

But I know better than to succumb to that temptation. I bite into my cake, icing catching on my upper lip, and start chewing. It tastes stale. The boat is taking its time pulling away from the pier; the river’s busy with evening tour boats. The song changes to ‘Let It Snow’.

On the other side of the river, on Embankment, the traffic lights blaze red as far as the eye can see.

*

When I get home, Clare is already there and still in her work trouser suit, not the yoga gear she routinely changes into as soon as she’s through the door. In the living room, nibbles have been set on the coffee table, enticingly arranged on a lacquered platter, alongside a carafe of iced water and three glasses. I anticipate a request to make myself scarce.

‘Expecting guests?’

‘Piers’s contact is coming round to talk to us. Kelvin, he’s called.’ She speaks to me as I’ve heard her speak to the cleaner and other helpers. Scrupulously democratic, emotionally remote, but preferable to the angry contempt that is, in my case, the alternative.

‘You mean the investigator? That was quick.’

‘It was an express service. Anyway, how long can it take? They just sit at a laptop, don’t they?’

Cracking passcodes. Breaking the law. Stealing data like a prowler steals jewellery and cash. As I collect a non-alcoholic lager from the fridge and take my seat at this most peculiar of conferences, I feel the wings of foreboding flap in my gut, as if the next couple of hours could alter my destiny.

‘By the way,’ she says, ‘I rang Kit’s office today.’

‘Really?’ I remember my own query to Merchison about Kit’s colleagues, his swift shutting-down. ‘Should we be doing that?’

‘I don’t see why not. I said I was a family friend.’

‘What did they say?’

‘They said he’s on leave. Very diplomatic. I guess it’s easy enough to cover it up at this time of year, when they’ve only got a skeleton staff anyway.’ At the sound of the doorbell, she jumps to her feet. ‘That’ll be Kelvin.’

I’d pictured a whizz kid barely out of school, but he is fortyish, stout of body and thin on top. He presents his findings with a cheerful bedside manner, as if he’s a financial advisor reviewing our pension provision. But Clare and I are quickly transfixed by the unequivocally dire, chaotically entwined arrangements of Kit and Melia: student loans, and many other types of loan taken out since, all with iniquitous interest rates; defaults on credit card payments; rent arrears on Tiding Street, plus three months unpaid on the flat before that is still being sought by the landlord; unauthorized overdrafts with excessive charges. Extensions on some of the loans and reductions in payments have been only temporary reprieves and their salaries barely touch the sides of the money pit. Since I’ve lost regular contact with Melia, they’ve been given notice to vacate Tiding Street and warned that bailiffs will visit if the arrears are not met.

‘It’s obvious she can’t pay up and is going to be evicted,’ Clare says. ‘I hope she’s got somewhere to go.’

‘Legally, she has till the end of January,’ Kelvin says, ‘even if bailiffs take the furniture before then.’

‘She has friends,’ I say, thinking of Elodie and her 999 threat. It’s striking that we all speak on the assumption that Melia is, for the foreseeable future, a single woman.

‘Really, they should have been getting advice about this,’ Kelvin says. ‘If nothing else, they could have rung the National Debtline, got some pointers on restructuring.’

‘They’re too proud for that,’ Clare says, astutely. ‘I think they’ve had their heads in the sand.’

In white powder, more like, I think, chewing a stuffed olive. Though Clare and I have not shared so much as a bowl of peanuts since her discovery of my affair, I’ve helped myself to a plateful of snacks, confident I won’t be chastised. Appearances are important to her; she won’t humiliate me in front of a stranger.