The video was only forty seconds long, recorded by a hotel corridor camera. But the woman in it wasn’t a stranger. It was Corinne, three doors down—the same woman who had brought us a casserole when my mother died. The footage was eight weeks old. Someone had carefully cut it so that the only face clearly visible was my husband’s, standing outside a hotel room at half past eleven at night. The sender was Corinne’s own husband, Ambrose, who had discovered the recording while disputing a charge on their credit card.

Later, Ambrose told me why he had covered my husband’s car in items from Corinne’s lingerie drawer. He hadn’t done it simply to humiliate me. He had spent three weeks trying to figure out how to tell me and couldn’t find the words. That morning, he finally broke. Desmond couldn’t deny what had happened. With the neighbours watching from their windows, Ambrose said Corinne’s name aloud. Desmond went inside, packed a bag, and walked away.