‘She must have tried to send it to me earlier and when you brought the phone from here it picked up reception and processed her outbox, sending it.’ We stare at each other again, the shock of the past week hanging on the air between us.

‘If only you hadn’t read it. If only…’

‘You know, what she wrote was all about me and her and how she was obsessed with me. Whatever happened between you and her wasn’t the focus of what she wrote.’ I’m acutely aware of talking Eirik down here; there is no doubt in my mind that he is set on silencing me.

‘She threatened to ruin my career, my marriage, everything. My whole life. I won’t let her. It didn’t mean a thing, she was just some girl. She reminded me of you when we were young, you know? That was all. She was a diversion. And she’s fucking cost me everything. Now just do as you’re told and write what I said.’

‘What are you going to do? Get rid of me and tell everyone that you came up here to look for your wife and found me dead, having killed myself like Elisabeth and Leah?’

‘Precisely. Now write it.’ Eirik grabs my arm hard with one hand, and holds me by the back of the neck with crushing force with his other hand. It feels as though I am going to black out. I think fast. I can get out of this, I know I can. I pick up the pen.

I can’t bear it any longer, I write. I’ve failed as a friend and as a therapist. And as a wife. I love you, Eirik, more than life itself. I push the little book over to my husband and as he reads the words, fresh tears gather in his eyes.

‘Come,’ he says.

‘Where?’

‘Outside.’ He picks up the coil of blue rope from where he dropped it on the floor and then he stoops down and gently picks me up from the sofa. It’s his gentleness that breaks my heart, he thinks he has no choice in this moment other than to kill the woman he loves. I need to give him a choice.