‘You all right?’

He reaches over and turns down the radio.

‘Yeah, fine.’ I look again at the gaping hole. ‘I see you made a start. Everything OK so far?’

‘Yeah, smashing.’ He smiles, showing no awareness of the incongruity of his adjective. ‘Hopefully we’ll get this wall down by the end of the day, and then we can get the RSJs in.’

‘RSJs?’

‘Reinforced steel joists.’

‘Right, OK.’

A huge lump of plaster drops from the ceiling.

‘Stops your house falling down.’ Ben calmly reaches for a mug of tea on the kitchen counter. ‘Any chance of any biscuits with this cuppa?’

‘Um, yes, I think they’re in that cupboard.’

Slightly dazed, I break off as I realize the kitchen cupboard has been ripped from the wall and is now propped up against the fridge, its door at a jaunty right-angle to its bashed-in casing.

‘Oh, you’ve pulled it off already.’

‘Yup,’ he nods, taking a satisfied sip of his tea.

‘And most of that wall with it, as well,’ I add, looking at where the tiles lie in a broken heap. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it all seems a bit brutal. I feel a twist of anxiety. There’s actual daylight coming through the brickwork.

‘Well, that’s the thing with these old houses – you never know what you’re going to find, until you start. There was a house up the Dale: all the back collapsed when they took out a window.’ Ben grins delightedly and shakes his head, as if this is an entertaining story, and not one that is turning my insides to ice.

As well as my outsides. Every single door and window is open and it’s freezing in here.

‘God, yeah, remember that, boss?’

One of the builders appears carrying a huge box of tools, which he dumps unceremoniously on the stone-flagged floor with a loud clatter.

‘It went down like a pack of cards,’ laughs the other builder from the garden, where he’s smoking a roll-up in a trampled flower bed.

I’ve since learned these are two brothers called Darren and Paul, though I still don’t know which is which; and listening to them constantly yelling instructions at each other, they appear to go by the names of ‘Fetch Me’ and ‘Carry Me’.

Crouching down, I yank open the door of the cupboard and reach inside for the packet of chocolate digestives. I hand them to Ben.

‘I hope you like broken biscuits.’

‘Love them,’ he grins, missing my sarcasm.

I turn back to go upstairs to panic in the Panic Room.

‘Thanks, Livvie. And don’t worry. That’s not going to happen to this house.’

Behind me, I hear the kitchen door blow shut and the crash of something breaking.

‘Trust me. You’re in safe hands.’

Two Weeks’ Notice

A few days later I’m woken by the chime of a WhatsApp message. Still half-asleep, I grab my phone from my bedside table. It’s Naomi. We haven’t caught up properly since I filled her in on the fallout from my drink with Ajay. Life, as ever, has got in the way. Surprisingly she didn’t try to persuade me to change my mind, which I’m grateful about, and we ended up laughing about Harry instead.