‘No thanks, I’m fine,’ I say, still reeling from the shock of reading the diary and remembering Ben’s call. Caffeine would be a bad idea right now.

‘Okay,’ she says, smiling politely. ‘Do take a seat and I won’t be a moment.’

As Sharon disappears down the stairs I sit down at her desk. As I wait I try to compose myself. I look around. There are four other desks dotted about the room, each with a person sitting behind it, either typing on computers or talking on the phone. None of them look up at me. The walls are covered with properties for sale. I read the details of the one just in front of me. A five-bedroom detached house in Ifield, on the market for £860,000. ‘A perfect family home,’ is how it is described on the front. As I look at it I think of how we stretched ourselves to get Larkfields even though we offered the lowest possible price, which was miraculously accepted. It seemed the Gothic facade and potential flood risk had put other buyers off. Still, Sean assured me that it was all fine, that work was going well and he would be in line for higher bonuses as he worked his way up the ladder. ‘It’s your childhood home, Mags,’ he’d said to me as I sat there, six months pregnant and weeping at the thought of someone outbidding us. ‘There is no way we’re going to lose it.’ And I was such a ball of hormones and baby head that I trusted him to deal with the intricacies of the sale. He signed all the papers and dealt with the bank and the estate agent and I believed him when he came home and said the house was ours. And it was. Until he sold it to some property firm. If only I knew why he had done that. And why he kept it from me all these years.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’

I look up and see Sharon coming back to the desk. She is holding an orange file in her arms.

‘I just need you to sign a couple of forms,’ she says. ‘And then I can hand you the key.’

She opens the file and takes out a sheet of paper.

‘If you could sign and date this one, just at the bottom there,’ she says, pointing her pen at the relevant place.

I scan the form. It’s a solicitor’s note. They are working on behalf of BH2 Properties who are registered to an address in the Channel Islands. The official language makes my head hurt but then as I get to the bottom I freeze. ‘Designated key holders for storage facility: Margaret Allan and Freya Nielssen.’