‘Oh, thingy will understand.’ This time he grinned. ‘Besides, you only live half a mile away. All I’m doing is giving you a lift home; we aren’t eloping to Gretna Green.’

It was dark inside the car, which was a relief, but Janey still flinched each time another vehicle passed them, beaming sadistic headlights over her face. She couldn’t seem to stop crying, either; the harder she tried not to think about Bruno and the degrading scene back in the restaurant, the more insistently the tears slid down her face. She hoped Guy Cassidy couldn’t see them plopping into her lap.

The journey took all of two minutes. Janey was free of her seat belt and reaching for the door handle before the car had even drawn to a halt outside the shop.

‘It’s customary to invite the man in for a coffee, you know,’ he observed, when she had mumbled her thanks and scrambled out on to the pavement.

Janey, who had been about to slam the passenger door shut, forgot to avert her swollen eyes. ‘Look, you’ve been very kind but I’d really rather be on my own. Don’t you think I’m embarrassed enough as it is?’

But Guy had switched off the ignition and was already stepping out of the car. ‘I think it wouldn’t be fair to leave you on your own bawling your eyes out.’ His tone of voice was more gentle now, and reassuringly matter of fact. ‘Come on, we can’t stand here arguing in the street.

People will think you’re Maxine.’

‘She said you were a bully,’ Janey grumbled, realizing that he wasn’t going to go away.

‘And what about Charlotte, anyway? You took her along to the party. She won’t be very pleased with you if you don’t go back.’

‘She’ll survive.’ Guy dismissed the protest with a careless gesture. Taking the keys from her trembling hand, he opened the front door and guided Janey into the hallway ahead of him.

‘Besides, rescuing damsels in distress is as good a reason as any for escaping. ‘I grew out of those kind of parties years ago, and I’ve already told you I don’t much care for Bruno Parry-Brent.’ With a brief sidelong glance at Janey, he added, ‘That’s something we appear to have in common, at least.’

So much for looking great, thought Janey, gloomily surveying her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Having scrubbed her face, soaping away every last vestige of makeup, it no longer looked like a ploughed field but it was certainly in a sorry state.The whites of her eyes were pink and her cheeks, normally pink, were white. Her eyelids remained hopelessly swollen too, despite her best efforts with a cold flannel. And somewhere along the line she had managed to lose one of the combs holding her hair back at the sides. All in all, she looked like a lop-eared rabbit.

But since she wasn’t about to run off to Gretna Green, as Guy had so caustically reminded her earlier, what did it matter? Pulling a face at herself in the mirror, chucking the other bronze comb on to the windowsill and running her fingers through her no longer perfect hair, Janey unlocked the bathroom door. Guy was in the kitchen making coffee. If he was so hellbent on hearing her side of the unflattering story behind Bruno’s contemptuous outbursts tonight, she would give it to him. She had no reason to want to impress him; he was only another rotten man anyway.

‘You’re looking better.’ Guy, having made the coffee and brought it through to the sitting room, handed her the pink mug with elephants round the side. Stretching out in the chair by the window, he added, Not wonderful, but better.’

‘Thanks.’ He certainly had a way with words, thought Janey. Flattery like that could turn a more susceptible girl’s head.

‘So what was it all about?’

She shrugged. There was no reason on earth why Guy Cassidy should be interested in hearing this, yet he was certainly giving a good impression of an agony aunt. One of those brisk, no-nonsense ones, Janey decided, who wouldn’t hesitate to tell you what a prat you’d been.

‘Well, Marje,’ she began with a rueful smile, ‘I suppose you could say I got myself involved with the wrong kind of man. I fell for the old chat-up lines, and even managed to convince myself that we weren’t doing anything wrong.’

‘Don’t tell me. He said his wife didn’t understand him.’

‘Quite the reverse. He said Nina understood him only too well, and that she didn’t mind.’

‘Of course.’ Guy’s dark eyebrows twitched with suppressed amusement. ‘And you believed him.’

‘I don’t make a habit of getting involved with attached men,’ Janey protested. ‘I know what you must be thinking, but I’m really not like that. I suppose I believed him because I wanted to.

And he was plausible,’ she added defensively. ‘I’m not trying to excuse myself, I’m just explaining how it happened. It simply didn’t occur to me that he might not be telling the truth.’

‘Until tonight, presumably, when you learned otherwise.’

‘I found out a couple of days ago,’ Janey admitted. ‘I asked Nina.’

‘Good God.’

‘I didn’t tell her!’ she said crossly. ‘I’m not that much of a bitch.’

‘OK. So what happened after you’d made your momentous discovery?’

‘You were there.’ To her shame, she felt fresh tears on her cheeks. ‘You heard the rest. I told Bruno what I thought of him and he retaliated.’ Fumbling for a tissue,she took a deep breath.

‘He ... he hit back where it hurt. I wasn’t expecting him to say what he did.’

‘About your husband?’ Once again, Guy’s tone was reassuringly matter of fact. ‘I didn’t even know you’d been married. How long ago were you divorced?’

‘I’m not divorced,’ said Janey, her voice beginning to break. ‘My husband ... disappeared.

We hadn’t had a fight or anything like that. He just went out one day and n-never came b-b-back.

Nobody knows what happened to him ... We don’t even know if he’s alive or d-d-dead.’

It should have been embarrassing, breaking down in tears all over again in front of a man she barely knew. But Guy took it all in his stride, allowing her to get all the pent-up despair out of her system, making more coffee and showing no sign at all of wanting to slope off.

‘Stop apologizing,’ he said calmly when Janey, lobbing yet another sodden tissue into the waste paper basket, mumbled ‘Oh hell, I’m sorry’ for the fifth time. ‘You haven’t exactly just had the best two years in the world. You’re entitled to cry.’

‘I don’t usually talk about it,’ she admitted in a small voice.

‘You should. It helps to talk.’

‘Did you?’ Janey hesitated, wondering if he would be offended. ‘Talk, I mean. After your wife died.’

‘Probably bored a few close friends rigid,’ said Guy. ‘But they were kind enough not to let it show.’

‘And now here I am, boring you.’

‘Not at all.’ He grinned across at her. ‘If I was hearing it for the twentieth time and knew the words off by heart, then I’d be bored. But I’m being serious, Janey. It doesn’t help, bottling it all up. You really need to get it out of your system.’

‘I know, I know.’ The tears had dried up now, making it easier to speak. ‘But it’s so ...

unfinished. If I knew what had happened, it would help. If Alan had wanted to leave me, why didn’t he just say so? Sometimes I think ... oh hell, it doesn’t matter—’ Mindful of Guy’s own past experience, she bit her tongue before the shameful words could spill out. But he was already nodding in agreement, having understood exactly what she was about to say.

‘Sometimes you think it would be easier if he were dead.’

Plucking at the sequins on her dress, Janey nodded.

‘Of course it would be easier,’ he continued gently, ‘but you can’t put your life on hold while you wait to find out one way or the other. You could carry on like that indefinitely and still not get an answer.’

Beginning to feel like one of those novelty dogs in the backs of cars, Janey nodded again.

Guy’s voice was wonderfully soothing and now that her nose was no longer blocked from crying she was able to taste the hefty measure of brandy he’d added to her coffee.

Guy, however, was really getting into his stride. ‘I’m going to be brutal,’ he said, fixing her with his unnervingly direct gaze. ‘If Alan is dead, he’s dead. If he’s alive, it means he did a particularly cowardly runner. Either way, the marriage is over.’

He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, but Janey still winced. Having clung so fiercely in those first few weeks to the total-amnesia theory, she had neverbeen able to discard it from her subconscious.

‘Yes,’ she replied obediently. ‘I know that.’

‘So what you have to do is put it behind you anyway and rebuild your life.’

Janey managed a brief smile. ‘That’s what I was trying to do. With Bruno.’

‘Heaven help us.’With a rueful shake of his head, Guy said, ‘Now that’s what I call choosing the wrong man for the job.Tell me, who would you go to if you needed brain surgery?

A lumberjack?’

‘Don’t. I think ‘I must need brain surgery.’ This time she laughed. All of a sudden, the Bruno fiasco didn’t seem quite so terrible. Guy had certainly been right when he’d said it helped to have someone to talk to.

‘OK, so now you forget him,’ he declared briskly. ‘He’s an unscrupulous little shit and he’ll get his comeuppance sooner or later. With any luck,’ he added suddenly, ‘it’ll be with Maxine.

Punishment enough for any man, I’d have thought. Even a bastard like Parry-Brent.’

By the time Guy rose to leave it was gone three o’clock. Janey, opening the front door for him, found herself suddenly and unaccountably overcome by shyness.

‘Well, thank you.’ Clutching the door handle for support, she shifted from one stockinged foot to the other. ‘For um ... bringing me home. And for staying to talk.’

No problem,’ said Guy easily. ‘I’ve enjoyed myself.’

Without her high heels, she was dwarfed by him. And since he’d seen her lose both her dignity and her makeup, Janey realized, there wasn’t a great deal of point in being shy. She owed him so much for having come to her rescue, the very least she could do was reach up on tiptoe and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

But her courage failed her, and she remained firmly rooted to the carpet. Some people, like Maxine, did that kind of thing all the time but she herself just wasn’t the quick-kiss-on-the-cheek type. Besides, thought Janey, how awful if Guy thought she was making some kind of amateurish pass at him .. .

‘I’m glad you decided to sneak away from the charity dinner, anyway,’ she said hurriedly, before he could read her mind.

‘Not half as glad as I am.’ He grinned. ‘It was pretty dire.’

‘And I hope Charlotte isn’t too furious with you for abandoning her at the party.’

‘Well at least you’ve managed to stop apologizing,’ said Guy, sounding amused. ‘All you have to do now is stop feeling guilty on my behalf. If I’m not worried about Charlotte, I don’t see why you should be.’

‘Oh, but isn’t she—’

‘Absolutely not. She’s a friend, but that’s as far as it goes. And shame on you,’ he added in mocking tones, ‘for even thinking otherwise. What has your fiendish sister been saying about me?’

‘Nothing at all,’ lied Janey. ‘I’m sorry. It was just me, getting it wrong as usual. I suppose it was because Charlotte seemed so ... well, so keen.’

‘She did?’ Guy looked genuinely surprised. Then he shrugged. ‘I’m not encouraging her, anyway. As I told you once before, I gave up behaving like Bruno Parry-Brent a couple of years ago. It isn’t worth the hassle.’ He paused, then added severely, ‘And whilst we’re on the subject of faithfulness, who was that chap I saw you with at the theatre the other week? I don’t suppose you mentioned him to Bruno.’

Aaargh, thought Janey, blushing in the darkness. Just when she thought she’d got away with it. ‘Oh, him. He wasn’t worth mentioning,’ she said, her tone off-hand. ‘I hadn’t even met him before that night. A so-called friend set me up on a blind date.’ She shuddered. ‘I could have killed her; I’d never been so embarrassed in my life.’

‘Until tonight,’ Guy reminded her. ‘And I’m afraid you’re really going to have to learn not to feel guilty on your own behalf.’

Janey’s blush deepened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘After you’d left, I was introduced to your blind date’s sister,’ he replied evenly. ‘She told me he’d met you through a Lonely Hearts column in the local paper.’

‘Oh God,’ sighed Janey, mortified.

‘I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed,’ Guy continued briskly. ‘He might have a loud laugh but he can’t be as much of a bastard as Parry-Brent. You need to make up your mind about what you really want.’