On my wedding night I hid under the bed to surprise my husband. His mother came in instead, sat down on the mattress above me, and put a call on speaker.

The thing I have not been able to explain to anybody is the four seconds before the lighter.

Because for those four seconds I was still planning to come out.

I was going to wait for her to leave and then get back under and do it properly when he came up. I had it worked out.

It is the smoke that stopped me. Not the words — the smoke, because it meant she was settling in, and because it meant he had lied about something small and pointless for no reason at all.

A man who lies about his mother's cigarettes is a man who lies as a default setting.

I have thought about that more than about anything else in the recording.
PART 3

I kept every receipt.

That sentence was going to be his proof.

It turned out to be mine, and it took a solicitor in my father's firm about nine days to explain to me exactly how.