The air leaves my lungs and it feels like an eternity until I take my next breath. He can’t possibly be telling the truth. ‘Why would you even say something like that?’

‘Because it’s true. I’m sorry, miss, but it is.’

‘Dom was right about you,’ I cry. ‘You’re a troublemaker.’

‘Yeah, well he would say that, wouldn’t he? He knows I’m on to him.’

‘Get out!’ I cry. ‘Go on, just get out!’ I cross the room and pull at the shoulder of his T-shirt, attempting to haul him to his feet. ‘Maybe you’re right about the steroids, Callum. Maybe. But what you’re accusing Dom of – cheating on me, sleeping with an underage girl – no, I don’t believe it. We’ve been together for years. I know him, and he wouldn’t do that. He just wouldn’t.’

‘I know it must be a crap thing to hear,’ he says, getting to his feet, cringing against my rough treatment of him, despite the fact he’s bigger than me, ‘but I’m not lying, miss. I promise. Hannah told me herself. I thought you deserved to know the truth, especially after he’s gone off with your little ’un. It’s not right. He shouldn’t have her. Your baby should be with you, not that paedo.’

‘Don’t call him that!’ I propel him in the direction of the back door, trying to get him out of my house. ‘And I don’t suppose you’ve considered that it’s Hannah who’s lying?’ That must be it, I think, relieved. She’s always been a little madam. She’s lying through her teeth. She has to be.

‘Hannah’s not like that,’ he says, shaking his head vigorously. ‘She wouldn’t lie to me. We’re friends. She tells me everything. Look, miss, before I go, there’s something else—’

‘Something else? What else can there possibly be?’

‘It was my voice you heard in the monitor that night. I’m sorry I scared you.’

‘Your voice?’ I take my hand off him and take a step back. What exactly is he telling me here?

‘Yeah. I was in Hannah’s room that night when the cops came round asking if there was another baby in Magnolia Close.’

‘You were in Hannah’s room?’ I frown. ‘I find it hard to believe that Lorna would let you into her daughter’s bedroom.’

‘Yeah, well, course she didn’t know I was up there. Me and Han heard the cops tell her mum and stepdad that you reported an attempted baby abduction. They said you heard voices in your baby monitor.’

‘I did hear voices. And now you’re saying it was you?’

Callum gazes down at his trainers for a moment. ‘I was telling Han she didn’t have to put up with her parents taking the baby. I said we should just take him ourselves and go off, run away somewhere. She knows I’d do anything for her. I’d help raise Leo. We could do it together. Her parents couldn’t stop us.’

‘Oh my God, that really was you!’ I stagger backwards and sit back down on the kitchen chair, letting my head fall into my hands, letting his words sink in.

‘Yeah,’ Callum continues. ‘We didn’t know that Leo’s monitor was being picked up by yours. Then, when the police came round to ask about a baby, well, me and Hannah nearly died. Couldn’t believe it. Parky went mental. He hadn’t realised I was upstairs. When he found me up there, he threatened to kill me. And Hannah’s mum was just as bad. We all had a right barney. I’m not allowed back there, so me and Han have to meet up in secret now.’

I’m trying to get my breathing back under control. ‘So, you’re telling me that it was really you in the monitor? That all this time, I thought… Do you realise what you’ve put me through?’ My voice rises to a screech as the implications of this sink in.

Callum’s eyes widen. ‘Calm down, miss. I didn’t exactly know you were listening—’

‘Calm down?’ I bang the palms of my hands down on the table, ignoring the shards of pain shooting up my bruised arm and shoulder. ‘Your little whispered conversation put me through hell! I thought there was someone out there trying to snatch my baby! I’ve been a paranoid mess for weeks!’

‘That’s not my fault,’ he says, glowering at me. ‘I mean, I’m sorry you were a mess and everything, but I thought I was having a private conversation with Hannah.’

I know what he’s saying is right, but I can’t help the wave of rage sweeping over me. These teenage kids have basically screwed up my sanity and may have cost me my marriage. No one is trying to take Daisy. It was Callum all along. He was simply trying to persuade Hannah to take her own baby. How did I manage to get things so wrong? All this time I’ve been thinking there’s someone out there who’s trying to steal my child.

But even if that part is true, can I really believe that Dom slept with a fifteen-year-old girl? That her child is… is Daisy’s half-brother. It can’t be true. It just can’t. But then why would Hannah lie about it? Why would Callum lie? What possible reason could they have? Money? Extortion? I look up at the boy.

‘Does my husband know?’ I snap. ‘About the baby?’

Callum shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so. Hannah never told him. I think the only person she’s told is me. And, like I said before, her parents think I’m the dad, too.’

‘Okay, so if it’s true that Dom’s the father, then why didn’t she tell him about the baby?’ I ask.

‘Han said she doesn’t want him getting in trouble with the police, or with her parents.’

‘Nice of her to be so considerate,’ I mutter. ‘But I still don’t believe that Dom would do that.’ He wouldn’t, would he? He loves me and Daisy. Hannah’s just a child – Dom wouldn’t be so stupid, surely.

‘I didn’t want to show you this, miss,’ Callum says, pulling his phone out of his jeans’ pocket.

‘Show me what?’

Callum is tapping and swiping at his phone, muttering to himself, his dark hair falling forward over his eyes. ‘Here,’ he says, holding out his phone screen.

Sunshine reflects off the screen so I stand and take the phone from him, moving further into the room where it’s darker. I’m looking at a photo on WhatsApp. A selfie of Dom and Hannah, heads bent together as they smile at the camera. The caption below reads: Now do you believe me?

The date is last November, when I was six months pregnant with Daisy.

Hannah looks beautiful, way older than fifteen, about twenty maybe. But still way too young for Dom. How could he? How could he? I pace up and down the kitchen, staring at the image until it blurs in front of my eyes. Callum is telling the truth. This picture proves it. My husband and this… this… child.

‘Miss.’

I want to smash the phone, but I don’t. Instead, I grip it so tightly that it feels like I could crush the metal and glass beneath my fingers.

‘Miss? Are you okay?’

‘What?’ I look up at Callum, who’s standing over by the open doors.

‘Can I have my phone back?’ he asks, a worried expression on his face.

‘If I give you my number, can you send me a copy of that photo?’ I ask.

‘Uh, yeah, I think so.’

I finally wrench my gaze away from the damning photo and give Callum his phone back. ‘Can you send it to me now?’ I give him my mobile number and he punches the digits into his phone. In a shocked daze, I take my phone out of my bag and wait for him to send the image through. ‘So, Hannah and… are they still… seeing each other?’ Bile rises up in my throat, but I swallow it back down.

‘Dunno,’ Callum says with a scowl. ‘She won’t talk to me about that.’

‘I thought you said she tells you everything.’

‘She does, mostly. It’s just, I think she’s trying to protect him or something. She knows I hate his guts. She knows I want to be with her. But for some reason she still likes him. He’s old enough to be her dad. I think it’s gross. He should be in prison.’

I realise that that’s exactly where Dom will end up if this gets out. And maybe it’s what he deserves. My phone pings and I open Callum’s text. My heart twists as the photo pops onto my screen.

‘Can you leave now?’ I ask, unable to hear any more. I need to be on my own and process this. I need to work out what I’m feeling, because at this precise moment I’m starting to become numb, to shut down.

Callum stares down at his feet. ‘There’s one more thing, miss.’

I don’t know if I can cope with ‘one more thing’. But I let him continue.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says softly, ‘but it was me who scratched your husband’s car. I don’t normally do stuff like that. I’m not a vandal or nothing. But, well, to be honest, I wish I’d torched the fucker.’

At this point I couldn’t care less about Dom’s car. But something else is bugging me. ‘Was it you who trampled my flowers? And tipped that paint over my step?’

Callum hangs his head and then nods.

I don’t know what to say to his silent admission. Those things all seem so trivial now, after what I’ve just learnt about Dom.

‘I’m sorry, miss. I did it to get back at your husband, not you. I was so angry.

‘Just go, Callum.’

‘Okay. I’m sorry,’ he repeats.

As he steps out of the back door, I remember something else. ‘Wait!’ I stand and turn to face him.

He stops and turns, his dark eyebrows raised.

‘Was it you who rang me that time?’ I ask.

‘Rang you?’

‘That anonymous call telling me to back off.’ I trawl my brain to remember the exact words… ‘“Stop poking your nose in.” That’s what they said. Was that you as well?’

‘I dunno what you’re talking about. I didn’t even know your number before just now so how could I have called you?’

‘Do you promise?’

‘Look, I just came round here to tell you some pretty serious stuff. Why would I lie about a phone call?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose you would.’

‘And why would anyone say that to you?’ Callum asks. ‘Maybe it was a wrong number.’

‘They used my first name.’

‘So what did they say exactly?’

‘What I just said. “Stop poking your nose in or you’ll regret it.”’

‘Shit. So it was like a threat or something.’

I nod. If it wasn’t Callum who called me, then it doesn’t make sense. Who could it have been? Unless… No. Dom wouldn’t do that to me, would he? I don’t know. My husband is not the person I thought he was. ‘I really need you to leave now, Callum.’

‘Sorry, miss. For… you know. Everything.’

I don’t reply. I just sit where I am, wishing I could blot everything out.

After Callum has gone, a deep silence overtakes the room.

My husband and Hannah Slater. I picture them together, more intimately, his hands on her body, and I rush over to the sink, vomiting up all the water I drank this morning. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Is Dom still seeing her? Are they in love? It can’t be possible, can it? But then again… it might be.

I grip the edge of the sink and take a breath as my mind unlocks and starts racing ahead. What if Dom hasn’t been working late these past few weeks, and instead he’s been meeting up in secret with Hannah Slater? What if he wants to be with her permanently? I squirt washing-up liquid into the basin and run the hot water tap to clean out the sink. Something else occurs to me – maybe my own husband has been setting me up to look crazy, making me appear neglectful. Could he have spiked my drink at the party? He could have. But he wouldn’t have, would he? Or maybe… was Hannah there yesterday? Did she do it?

Once the sink is clean, I pour myself a glass of water, rinse out my mouth and spit. Then I square my shoulders. I’m not going to sit around here all day speculating. I’ve done enough of that over the past couple of weeks.

I’m going next door right now to find out the truth.