‘Can I help you?’

She’s aggressive and annoyed and I check that I have been pressing Jack’s buzzer and not hers. I just stare at her.

‘You’re pressing the doorbell to an empty flat.’

‘It’s not empty. Jack Atkinson lives there.’

She sighs.

‘It’s been empty for ages. Perhaps you’ve got the wrong building?’

I step backwards. The inlaid stone says Villa Place. The woman at United Utilities definitely said number 23.

‘Oh, wait a minute. There was a bloke round here about two months ago. Had a look round with an estate agent, then came back a couple of days later. Tall, good-looking in a classic kind of—’

‘Yes. That’ll be him.’

She folds her arms and moves closer.

‘Not seen him since, more’s the pity.’

I walk away and she watches me as I turn at the bottom of the drive. I creep up behind the bushes and across the lawns at the back of the building. The flat with the balcony is in darkness but that doesn’t mean anything. I know he travels a lot. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t seen him.

I have to sidle up to the nosy woman’s window and I can see her eating toast and jam. I wait until she goes into the kitchen and then I run across the front of the window and climb up onto the balcony. The green velvet curtains are slightly parted and I peer through them, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light.

She’s right. It’s empty. No furniture. I can see into the kitchen. No cooker or fridge. There’s a mezzanine where the bed would go, but again, empty. The gas and electric are on – I can see a glow inside the boiler and plug socket switches show little red lights here and there. I’m about to walk away and admit defeat when I see a small bedroom window further up the apartment.

I tiptoe along and find a stone to stand on to see into the window. There’s a small table and a single bed and, just behind the bed, I see the top of the tallest Samsonite suitcase. One of the four cases that were delivered to my house.

So he has been here. He’s not living here. So where is he? I slide down the wall and sit on the cold stone pathway, picking away at the moss in the cracks. This just gets more and more confusing. Wherever he is, he can’t have our children with him, because they are still at his mother’s. Wherever he is he doesn’t want to take his bags from where he’s been before.