He continued to stand there looking faintly perplexed, but not yet ready to leave. “The thing is,” he said, “it would be an offense for us to throw your post away when it’s addressed to you.”

“I’m not that person anymore,” she reminded him shrilly.

He looked pained, but before he could speak a familiar voice claimed their attention.

“Claudia, great, I caught you. Would you mind taking . . .” Andee stopped as she clocked Johnson. “Leo, I didn’t realize it was you.” She smiled affectionately. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Claudia frantically tried to think of an explanation, something that would sound remotely plausible, and it was apparent that Leo was trying too, but all that happened was a clumsy sort of stammering that amounted to nothing more than confusion.

Moving smoothly past it, Andee said, “Well, it’s lovely to see you, as always. I’ve just stopped by to ask you, Claudia, if you’d mind taking a few things over to Cassie for me? You are still going there this morning?”

“I’m just on my way,” Claudia replied, and reached for the bag Andee was holding out. To Leo she said, “My mother’s inside if you’d like to talk to her.”

“Uh, yes, that would be great,” he replied. “Lovely to see you too,” he said to Andee. “Merry Christmas to you and yours.”

“Same to you and yours,” she responded, and with a friendly little wave she walked back to her car.

“I really have to go,” Claudia said, as Johnson tried again to give her the post, and brushing past him she opened her boot to drop everything inside.

As she drove away she quickly connected to her mother to let her know what had just happened, but Marcy’s line was busy and she knew that by the time she got hold of her she’d probably already have let Leo Johnson into the flat.

It didn’t matter. Her mother would find a way of dealing with it, which would probably be simply to take the mail to the nearest shredder as soon as Johnson had gone. She should have done that herself, and would have if she’d had more time to think, but he’d thrown her, turning up out of the blue like that.

He must have understood her reaction, but heaven only knew what Andee was thinking now. She didn’t even want to imagine it. She could only think about the glimpse of what might have been a prison letter. Pulling over, she sent a quick text to her mother and willed her to reply quickly. Thankfully, she did.

Don’t worry, I’ll destroy them all.