But I’ve known her a long time. I know her secrets. I know how she would pay for a bottle of milk in the shop, the same late-night Costcutter’s as I went to today, and take a loaf of bread on the way out. When she got caught she would claim that she was on her way back to the till to pay. If she’d been a regular run-ragged housewife, they would have called the police. I’ve seen it happen.

Because she was tidy and well-spoken it was difficult to resist her lies. She would explain to us that they couldn’t have done anything because it’s not a crime until you get outside the shop. She didn’t pay for anything she didn’t have to.

‘Who can I use today?’

She would actually say it. Neighbours and friends would come around with shopping and cooked food that she never paid for. I grew to realise that she thrived on the awkwardness of situations that stopped anyone asking her for money. As a result, she could save her salary from the antiques shop she managed part-time and the family allowance and buy herself ‘key items’.

These were mainly designer clothes that she would mix and match with charity-shop-sourced designer labels to give her an expensive aura. Jack seemed oblivious that it was wrong. That she was stealing and manipulating. He simply learned it and used it in his own life. I was too engrossed in him and my college work to realise how bad she actually was. How damaging the lies were, and how she believed her own hype.

It wasn’t until my wedding day that I fully understood how destructive she was. I thought we were keeping her sweet because you were as desperate as I was for us to have our own lives. For us to be together.

I’d planned the day meticulously. We had a lot of friends – a very popular couple – and the reception numbers were brimming with hangers-on. Early on, she’d tried to muscle in on the planning, but gave in surprisingly easily, telling me she had other things she could be doing. I was relieved, because her ideas and my ideas did not match. Relieved but wary.

I thought she was being nice by offering to put down the deposit on a small semi-detached for us. We all went along to see it and I started to plan the curtains and the carpets. When I became busy with the wedding, she offered to take over the financial dealings with the house and I let her. I fucking let her.