The next morning, it’s so hard to walk into that freezing playground, but I force myself to get Charlie into his school clothes and I concentrate on not clenching his hand as I walk him to school and on keeping my smile up while I stand at the gates. I make myself wave as he trots inside, even though my mind is like some creature trapped in a cage, rushing in panic from one end to the other. Did one of these mums or dads, a parent of some classmate of Charlie’s, send that message? Has someone managed to join the dots? But that doesn’t make sense, I realize when I manage to think straight. Why not come out with it straight to my face? So who then? My brain goes skittering round and round. Who, who, who?

In the cocoon of our home, no one can see us, but now it seems the monster of my anxiety has grown so huge that even back in the flat with the door closed again against the world, I am unable to stop myself from shaking. Maybe it was nothing but some stupid prank, some joke. There are tenants who have my personal number, don’t they? It could easily be one of them, annoyed with something, having a go. Am I just reading craziness into this, guilt colouring everything I see?

Really, though, I can’t shake the dread that this is all tied up with Sarah. The text message was only one line, one brutal, damning line. The rest was blank space, so much room for me to fill in the gaps: Leave this alone. And still it comes back to me in a sickening wave: that image of Sarah’s body on the couch. Months and months passing with no one missing her. The horror, the absolute horror of that.

I go through to the bathroom to dowse cold water on my face again. As I do, my phone pings, then pings again: two texts from Alastair, of all people. I can see from the time stamps that there was a space of a couple of minutes between when he wrote them.

It was good to meet you yesterday, the first says.

And then:

I wondered if, some time, we might meet up again? You seemed such a nice and thoughtful person.

I don’t reply to him. I can’t. All I can do is stare at myself in the bathroom mirror, hands gripping the edges of the sink, thinking, Am I? Am I? Am I?

I have no one to turn to, to give me perspective on this. Because how can I bear anyone else trying to make sense of why someone would send me a message like that? How can I answer the very first question they would ask: But Jennifer, Jenn, what on earth do they mean?