It started, as things like this often do, with a bad marriage and too much to drink. Nicola and I worked together, a couple of desks apart in an open-plan office. She was a woman that you might easily overlook. Sensible cardigans, flat shoes, hair almost always tied back in a simple ponytail. She would talk about her husband's snoring, the kids' school and the various after-school clubs she had to take them to, the leakin...

The days after that night with Jamie and Layla had been a blur for Nicola in her ordinary life. She had so far adhered to the rules given to her. To not speak of it, to not mention it again. The days at work, in the office with Jamie, had been especially hard. Sitting a desk or two away from the man who had seen her. Had known exactly what she had needed, exactly what she had not been getting from her husband in so long a...