‘I’ll come too,’ Devan replied. ‘I want to get a chamois for the car. That cloth we’ve got is useless – it just makes the windscreen worse.’

‘I’ll get it,’ she said quickly. Devan didn’t particularly enjoy supermarkets, and she thought her plan was safe.

He shrugged. ‘OK. We need fruit and loo paper.’

She let out a careful breath. ‘We could do something this afternoon … Pub lunch, maybe?’

Devan nodded, but was absorbed in an incoming text. Watching his bent head, she felt a sudden fear for him, for the hurt she might inflict on him, if he were ever faced with how she had betrayed him. Jared’s just doing what he always does, she consoled herself. And, to be fair to him, she’d never complained before when he’d made a random appearance. In fact, she’d been waiting eagerly for him every time, to her shame. Not any longer. Definitely not any longer.

Connie was certain she just needed to impress upon Jared that she would not be succumbing to his charms this time … or ever again. Not ever. She’d had no indication that he was a vengeful, vindictive person – although she was aware she knew little about him. Surely there’d be no mileage in compromising me, she thought, months after their affair had ended. With these soothing thoughts, she readied herself for the rendezvous at the windmill.

Dashing round the supermarket as if she were a contestant on Supermarket Sweep, she bought the weekend’s provisions in record time, settling for staples like shepherd’s pie and pasta, the ingredients for which were stamped on her brain, like the words of a school hymn, and needed no concentration. Her mind was all over the place. He’ll be gone by lunchtime. She prayed no one she knew would be up at the windmill today. It was more of a tourist stop, and she very much doubted that on a chilly late-October Saturday anyone would be there at all.

When Connie arrived, she was relieved to see no other cars in the lay-by near the gate to the tall whitewashed stone tower. She sat there for a moment, listening to the silence. Will he come? She tried to remember what she’d told him, but her brain wouldn’t focus on the earlier conversation. All she could remember was blind, gut-churning panic.

She got out of the car. There was quite a wind up there, the air damp, more rain on the way. Pushing open the gate, she walked towards the mill, glancing nervously around. No one. She shivered. Maybe he got the message, she thought, clinging to a slim thread of hope.