The scan showed that he was a healthy weight, and developing normally. It didn’t pick up any abnormalities. I hadn’t really expected or prepared myself for bad news, but both Mark and I had been apprehensive, and afterwards we went to a posh restaurant for lunch to celebrate.

Mark looked at me with so much love I couldn’t quite believe it was all for me; even back in the days when he’d been fond of me, Sean had never looked at me like that. He raised a glass of sparkling water to me and said, ‘One of these days, we’ll have champagne to celebrate all this.’

We were as giggly and wrapped up in each other as newlyweds, which was exactly what we were; we’d tied the knot a few weeks before, in a quiet registry office ceremony attended by Ingrid and the girls. I’d found a work email address for my sister and had written to her to let her know about the wedding, but I hadn’t invited her and I hadn’t heard back. I’d been a little hurt by her silence, but not enough to spoil anything; after all, there was so much to be happy about.

In the end, we’d decided to go for a short honeymoon that would give us both a chance to relax, and had rejected the idea of an Italian sightseeing trip in favour of a weekend in a cabin by a Croatian lake. It was the longest time we’d ever spent alone together. Then we’d gone home together to the girls in Fairmarsh.

Moving out of our London flat hadn’t been much of a wrench, though I’d been sorry to leave Peter behind – he was the kindest neighbour I’d ever had. But the girls had their own rooms at last… and it was such a good feeling not to have to worry about the three-monthly inspections any more, or feel that we could be turfed out at short notice if the landlady decided to sell up or move someone else in.

I’d stopped working after the move. Mark was concerned about whether exposure to the chemicals in hair dye might be bad for the baby; I wasn’t too worried about that – since the official advice was that it probably wouldn’t be – but I didn’t really have the energy to relaunch my business in a new area. We’d agreed that I might start it up again when the baby was older, but I didn’t feel any particular sense of urgency. For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t have to worry about bringing money in. It was pretty much like having won the lottery.

But I must have been anxious, even though I didn’t really acknowledge it to myself. Summer gave way to autumn and the girls started their new schools, and as Christmas and my due date drew closer, I began to have strange recurring dreams.

They were about insects. Tides of them. Little bugs, not malevolent, but too numerous to be disregarded. Not dangerous in themselves. But still a threat, if only because there were so many.