‘It’s never going to be lovely,’ Thea argued. ‘But it might keep me amused for a few evenings.’

Hepzie could not believe her senses when her mistress got out of the car, unloaded all her bags and then told her to stay where she was. She scrabbled at the window and whined, convinced that there had been an oversight. Stephanie clutched her to her chest and repeated, ‘You’re staying with us, Heps. It’s okay – your Mumma’s coming back soon.’

Thea waved them off, once Drew had checked she could get into the house, and advised her with all due humility to do something to barricade herself in at night. There were tears in her eyes at her own multiple betrayal as the car disappeared from sight. ‘Selfish – 17that’s what I am,’ she muttered, before adding a mental note that surely she was allowed to have at least some time and space of her own. They were Drew’s children – it was only reasonable that he should share the responsibility of looking after them. Any feminist would agree with her; but feminists seemed to be sadly thin on the ground these days.

She looked around, standing in the short driveway. At the side of the house there was a cement mixer, daubed with misshapen lumps of grey cement, its cable draped untidily around its legs. Exploring down towards the back, she found a small skip that must have been delivered on a truck squeezing through the space between the house and the hedge that separated it from a wooded area to the north-east. Whether or not there was a neighbouring house beyond the woods had yet to be discovered. So far, the only other house she’d noticed was across the road from the front gate. The skip was piled with cardboard, glass and rubble. The latter must be the ruins of the stretch of wall that had been knocked down, she realised. There was a hole into the kitchen, scantily covered with a plastic sheet. Peering inside, Thea could see rough walls where cupboards must have been torn down, and gaps waiting for new installations. There were no worktops, but the floor-level cupboards were in place. It seemed to Thea that there was a good deal of work still to be done.

She went round to the front, where she’d left the door ajar, and embarked on a quick exploration of the ground floor. The house was sparsely furnished, with no carpets 18in the hallway or dining room and no pictures on the walls. Her footsteps echoed along the hallway. When she opened doors, there were smells of fresh plaster, new wood, and the sharp tang of some kind of adhesive, but the main rooms did not appear to have been structurally altered. The work was all concentrated on the kitchen and what appeared to be a brand-new downstairs lavatory.

She felt much more alone than on previous house-sits. The absence of the dog went a long way to explaining this, but the ravaged condition of the house added to it. It lacked the essentials for comfortable existence – nowhere to sit with your feet up, reading a book. There was a table in the dining room, pushed against the wall, where she could put her laptop. There were two upholstered chairs in the living room, and a small television, but again, they were awkwardly positioned, as if placed there reluctantly for Thea’s use, without any thought. Everything felt temporary and indecisive. The owner of the house had lived there for only a few weeks, she remembered, having bought the house not very long ago. Presumably she had spent those weeks planning the renovations, and scattering furniture more or less at random. The fitted carpet in the main living room was clearly old and unloved. One corner had been pulled up and left loose.