I hear Tom’s Lambretta pull up on the driveway; he’s always wanted one and treated himself to the second-hand moped when we moved here to get back and forth to the station. It’s cheaper than running two cars, and all the spare money we had saved is going on this extension.

I hear the front door slam. Tom rushes into the kitchen, concern etched all over his face. He has his glasses on, the trendy black-rimmed pair he bought when he started his new job in the finance department of a tech company over a year ago. He felt they gave him more gravitas. His sandy-blond fringe falls over his face and he’s rumpled in his linen shirt and blazer over jeans. It doesn’t matter what he wears, he still manages to look like a student. He smells of London – of fumes and trains and takeaway lattes and other people’s expensive scents. Snowy is circling our legs and Tom bends down to pat him distractedly, but his attention is firmly on me.

‘Oh, my God, are you okay? What a shock . . . the baby,’ he says, straightening up.

‘It’s all fine. We’re fine,’ I say, palms on my stomach protectively. ‘The police are still outside. They’ve interviewed me and the builders, and now they’ve set up crime tape and a tent and everything.’

‘Fuck.’ He looks past me at the scene from the window and his expression darkens for a few seconds. Then he turns to me. ‘Have they given you much info?’

‘Not much, no. It’s a human skeleton. Who knows how long it’s been there? It could date back a few hundred years for all I know.’

‘Or to Roman times,’ he says, smiling wryly.

‘Exactly. Probably been here before Skelton Place was even built. And that was . . .’ I frown, realizing I can’t actually remember.

‘1855.’ Of course Tom would know. He only has to read things once to remember them. He’s always the first to answer a general-knowledge question on game shows and he’s forever looking up facts and trivia on his phone. He’s the opposite to me: calm, pragmatic and never overreacts. ‘It looks like serious shit, though,’ muses Tom, his eyes still fixed on the scene in the garden. I follow his gaze. Someone has turned up with two cadaver dogs. Do they suspect more bodies? My stomach twists.

Tom turns back to me, his voice serious. ‘Not what we expected when we moved to the country.’ A beat of silence before we break into nervous laughter.

‘Oh, God,’ I say, sobering up. ‘It feels wrong to laugh. Somebody died after all.’

This sets us off again.