All this and much more came back as I listened to the tape for a third time. Inevitably, I remembered the fights more clearly than the good times. There were plenty of both – screaming matches that almost, but never quite, got physical, at least on my side. Cyn accused me of every crime in the book – neglect, dishonesty, infidelity, drunkenness, irresponsibility. Increasingly, as things got worse between us, the accusations were valid. In the end my failure to show up for ‘a talk’ which I’d sworn to do was the last straw for Cyn and she left, cleaning the house out of all her possessions.

I remember getting home full of remorse for not keeping my promise and finding her gone. I immediately went looking for the gin bottle to help me through it, but she’d taken the gin.

The good times were less sharply focused in my memory – beach holidays, dinners, late night walks through Glebe and sexual bouts that left us both exhausted.

On the third run-through I paid more attention to the present than the past. The voice, although recognisable, had changed a bit. Still firm, but not as firm, still clear but not as clear. And for Cyn to say please three times in a short message was unusual. This made me curious. But I was surprised to find that traces of the old hostility persisted. Bugger it, why should I put myself out for her? was one impulse. Against that, she said she had something to tell me and information was my business. I had the phone number written down and I could have called and suggested a meeting in another place at another time. But how petty was that?

As it happened, I didn’t have a lot on at the time and after successfully concluding a long-running fraud investigation I was solvent if not flush. That evening I wandered around the house, noting the signs of neglect and decay that advanced and retreated over the years as I spent or withheld money.