I got on with my work, letting my mind go blank as I measured and brushed and cleaned, replied to emails about adoption and dog care. I would be all right. This wasn’t happening again. This was just an unfortunate coincidence, for me at least. I had to think about Anna, that someone had slashed the life from her. Unable to avoid it, I found myself looking on the BBC website. There was a picture of the path into the woods, which I realised must have been taken almost from outside my house. Dead woman named as Anna Devine. I swallowed hard. They had a picture of her, what looked like a wedding photo, Anna beaming with her fair hair twisted up. Alex must have been cropped out. There was a shot of her parents being led into the police station, an older couple in matching raincoats, their faces shattered with grief. The body was found by a jogger around 8 a.m. yesterday, who then raised the alarm. So she had lain there for another half an hour before anyone else came by. Police estimate death occurred several hours before. That was vague. What if she’d only just been killed when I passed by? What if the killer was still there, lurking in the trees, in the silence of the dawn? I shuddered.

‘Rachel?’

I looked up to see Tom the intern standing over my desk. He’d never spoken to me directly before, and I hadn’t realised he even knew my name.

‘Yes?’ Was he trying to peer over my shoulder? I glanced at my screen reflexively – nothing incriminating. I would never be so stupid as to google myself on a shared computer.

‘Do you want a cup of tea? I’m making some.’

That was a first. He was one of those boys from wealthy families, all turned-up collars and floppy dark hair. He must know the police had questioned me, and be snooping for information.

‘Um – no, thank you, I’m OK.’ Another habit from what happened – I didn’t trust other people to make my food or drinks. I watched myself, I watched them too. It’s maybe the worst legacy it leaves you with. You never truly feel safe again.

I finished work at five and walked home along the lake, enjoying how my boots sank into the mud, the wet shine of the earth. See, a little voice said in my head, you are here, not in a concrete yard or a boiling box with someone screaming next door. See, you are lucky. You escaped.

I didn’t feel lucky. And when I got home, the police were waiting for me.

I saw the car as I walked up the lane, my heart fluttering in my chest. I was shaking. Sweat down my back. It’s happening. Again. As I reached my garden gate, a man opened the car door and got out.