Anna Fox bit her lip, her dark eyes bright with a mixture of pride and regret. ‘I really am sorry,’ she sighed. ‘I did say it wasn’t going to be easy. You must think I’m a complete bitch.’

The door swung open. Paula, like the cavalry, had arrived in the nick of time.

‘Dear old Mrs McKenzie-Smith burst into tears when I arrived with her bouquet,’ she announced cheerfully. ‘It’s her golden wedding anniversary and this is the first time her husband’s ever given her flowers. Hello, gorgeous,’ she went on, wiggling stubby fingers at the wide-eyed baby. ‘Oh I say, what a lovely smile! What’s your name then?’

‘Good, you’re back,’ said Janey hurriedly. ‘Paula, can you take over here? We’re going upstairs for a while ...’

‘His name’s Justin,’ said Anna, fumbling with the zip as she struggled to get him out of his snowsuit. With a defensive glance in Janey’s direction she added, ‘He’s ten months old.’

Janey, who had switched the kettle on, was now leaning in the kitchen doorway whilst she waited for it to boil.

‘Does he say anything yet?’

Anna pulled a face. ‘Only "Da".’

‘Da!’ Justin exclaimed in delighted recognition. ‘Da da da. Da!’

‘Ma,’ prompted Anna, embarrassed, and he beamed. ‘Mmm ... Da!’

‘This is crazy,’ said Janey, giving up on the kettle and sitting down. ‘Here you are feeling sorry for me, and I’m feeling sorry for you. Look, Alan doesn’t live here. We aren’t ... together, anymore. I can’t say I’m not stunned by all this, but you haven’t upset me. In a weird kind of way, it’s the best news I’ve had in years.’

‘Really?’ Anna’s eyes promptly filled with tears as astonishment mingled with overwhelming relief. ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so glad ... oh dear, now my mascara’s going to run.’

Janey passed her a box of tissues. The baby, half in and half out of his snowsuit, was wriggling like an eel.

‘Here, let me take him,’ she offered, as Anna struggled to blow her nose and hold him on her lap at the same time. ‘You don’t have enough hands.’

‘You really and truly don’t mind?’ said Anna, sniffing loudly.

Janey smiled. ‘Of course not. I like babies.’

‘I mean about me and Alan.’ She bit her lip. ‘I still feel dreadful, springing this on you.’

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that you did,’ Janey assured her, from the heart. ‘Listen, I kicked him out. He didn’t want to leave ...’ She hesitated, then shrugged and said simply, ‘Well, now ‘I know, I don’t have to feel guilty any more. You can’t imagine what a relief that is.’

‘We only went along as a kind of joke,’ Anna explained, clutching her cup of coffee and looking defiant. ‘It wasn’t as if I was desperate or anything, but my friend Elaine had been answering ads in the Personal columns without much luck, and I said why didn’t she try a singles bar instead. Well, she found this new one advertised in Time Out and dragged me along to keep her company. I didn’t even want to go, but she’s such a nag. That’s probably why her boyfriends never last longer than a week,’ she added with a smile. Janey, who privately felt Personal columns and singles bars had a lot to answer for, gave her an encouraging nod.

‘Well, the moment we got to this place in Kensington she spotted Alan and liked the look of him. He came over, started chatting ... and that was how it all started. Elaine was furious with me of course, but what could ‘I do? He was so handsome and charming that when he asked for my phone number at the end of the night ‘I gave it to him. He wasn’t the least bit interested in Elaine.’ She looked at Janey. ‘Now, of course, I wish he had been.’

‘And that was when?’ Janey silently marvelled at the story Alan had concocted about Glasgow and Manchester.

‘The February before last. Nearly two years ago.’

Janey nodded. He hadn’t wasted much time, then. So much for the Scottish cockroaches and seedy bedsitters. ‘OK, go on.’

‘Well, he just kind of moved in with me.’ Anna looked helpless. ‘I suppose I was pretty gullible but somehow ‘I didn’t even twig that he might be taking advantage of me. When you’re madly in love, you don’t think of things like that. My house, you see, was left to me by an aunt, so money wasn’t a problem. I had a good job in advertising, and it was just so lovely having someone to come home to at the end of the day. To begin with, he used to do odd bits around the house: chucking clothes into the washing machine, cooking the occasional meal. And I thought that was so great! After a few months, of course, it started petering out.’ Anna paused, then took a deep breath. ‘Elaine had been making sarcastic remarks all along, but I’d dismissed them as jealousy. Just as I was beginning to think maybe she had a point after all, I found out I was pregnant.’

‘Great timing,’ said Janey sardonically.

‘Yes, well. Blame it on the hormones, but the idea of coping with a baby on my own scared me witless. I managed to persuade myself that Alan wasn’t so bad after all. I wanted him to marry me,’ she said with a self-deprecating shrug. ‘That was when I found out he wasn’t actually divorced.’

‘So he talked about me?’

‘Not really. He just told me you were separated.’

Janey, amazed how easy it was to remain calm, murmured, ‘What a shame be couldn’t have told me.’

‘You didn’t know?’ Anna’s dark eyebrows shot up. ‘I mean ... he was your husband! What did you think, that he was working abroad or something?’

‘I didn’t know what to think,’ Janey replied. ‘He just disappeared. I thought he was dead.’

Shaking her head in disbelief, Anna reached into her bag and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Oh well, why should that surprise me?’ She gestured wearily with the box of matches. ‘He did the same to me, after all.’

‘Finish the story,’ said Janey. ‘He couldn’t marry you because he wasn’t divorced. So what happened after that?’

‘Nothing much.’ Anna gazed at the smoke spiralling towards the ceiling. ‘We didn’t get married. I gave up work and had the baby. Alan started going out more and more often because he said he couldn’t stand the bloody noise of bloody crying, and eight weeks ago he upped and left. We’d had an awful row the night before,’ she explained. ‘The next morning, I took Justin to the clinic for one of his routine check-ups. By the time we got back two hours later, Alan had moved out.’

‘No note?’

Anna, smiling briefly, shook her head. ‘No note. But he’d threatened to leave and his clothes had gone. So I knew he wasn’t dead.’

‘But you did know where to find him?’ Janey was deeply intrigued. Hadn’t it even occurred to Alan that, for whatever reason, Anna might want to get in touch with him? Did he seriously expect to get away with it a second time when there was a baby to consider?

‘Ah, but he didn’t know I knew.’ Folding her half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray, Anna pushed back her hair and glanced across at Justin to make sure he’d fallen asleep. ‘All Alan ever told me about you was that you had a flower shop, and that you lived above it. When I asked where, he just said somewhere in Cornwall. One night though, he came home really drunk. We had a massive argument and Alan said if I wasn’t careful he’d go home to Trezale. The next morning,’ she added, ‘he had a thumping hangover and couldn’t even remember the row. I don’t know why I did it but I wrote "Trezale" down in the back of my diary.’

‘So you came all the way down here from London, just on the off-chance?’

‘Gosh no. I did a bit of Miss Marpleing first.’ Anna smiled. ‘I called Directory Enquiries, got the numbers of all the Sinclairs and started ringing them, asking if they were the florist. The third person I spoke to told me the name of your shop, which meant I could phone Enquiries again and get your number ... which in turn matched up with the next one on my list. All I had to do then was call you and ask to speak to Alan. Actually, I spoke to your assistant. But she just said Alan had gone out for the afternoon, so then I knew he was living back here, with you. That was a few weeks ago, of course,’ she concluded. ‘Before you booted him out.’

‘Clever,’ said Janey. ‘He’s still living in Trezale, by the way. I can give you the address.’

She paused, still curious. ‘So why have you come down here? Do you want him back?’

The baby stirred in his sleep, stretching his arms and briefly clenching his tiny fists.

‘God no,’ said Anna, running a gentle finger over his cheek. ‘I just didn’t want him to think he could get away with it.’ Her eyes bright with defiance, she added, ‘I wanted you to know what a bastard he was, too. For your own protection, not just to be mean. I suppose I needed to make him realize he couldn’t go around treating women like dirt.’

‘Well, thanks.’ Janey smiled. ‘I’m glad you did. I only wish you could have turned up a few weeks earlier.’

‘You were really feeling guilty?’

She nodded. ‘He’s a convincing liar, as well as a bastard. He made me feel guilty. Oh ... the relief of knowing I can stop!’

Anna said mischievously, ‘Do you want to come with me when I go to see him? Would that be fun?’

‘I’ve got an even better idea.’ Janey broke into a grin. Reaching across the table, she picked up the phone. ‘Why put ourselves out? Why don’t I give him a ring and ask him to come over here?’

It was like exorcizing a ghost, only more fun. Janey, who hadn’t enjoyed herself so much for years, made the phone call and issued the invitation in a voice overflowing with sultry promise. Alan, instantly assuming that she had come to her senses and realized she couldn’t live without him, was delighted and only too happy to forgive her.

Within twenty minutes of putting the phone down he arrived, jaunty, freshly showered and bright-eyed with anticipation, on her doorstep. Janey and Anna, peeping out from behind the curtains, marvelled at the indestructible nerve of the man and struggled not to laugh out loud.