Steph stood up and pounded the door again. ‘Mum! Open the door!’ She held her finger on the doorbell and could hear the persistent sound of the buzzer from inside the house.

It seemed an age before Wendy finally opened the door. ‘Stephanie, what are you doing here?’

Under normal circumstances Steph would have inwardly sighed at her mother’s greeting. She’d always fantasised that one day Wendy would open the door, smile broadly, open her arms and exclaim what a lovely surprise it was to see her. Today, however, she didn’t have time to indulge in such fantasy.

‘You took ages to answer the door – is everything all right?’ Steph looked over her mother’s shoulder and down the hallway. Wendy didn’t move.

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘Because I’ve been ringing the bell, knocking on the door and shouting through the letterbox. Have you got visitors? I can come back if it’s inconvenient.’

‘I was upstairs in the bathroom, if you must know,’ said Wendy. Her eyes weren’t looking at Steph, though, but at something behind Steph in the street.

Automatically, Steph turned to look back over her left shoulder to see what had attracted Wendy’s attention. She heard the noise of a car as it passed and quickly looked in the other direction. A black 4x4 accelerated down the road.

‘Who was that?’ demanded Steph.

Wendy’s face was a picture of confusion. ‘How do I know? Anyway, why are you here?’

Steph gave another look down the road, but the 4x4 had disappeared out of sight now, and she turned to face her mother again. ‘I just thought I’d call in. You seemed worried about me the other day. Can I come in or have I got to stand on the doorstep all afternoon?’

Wendy barely supressed her sigh and opened the door to allow her daughter in. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please.’ Steph trailed Wendy into the kitchen and discreetly cast her gaze around the room. She didn’t know what she was looking for, just something that would give her a clue as to who had been here. There was nothing, but as she casually moved towards the back door with the pretence of looking out of the window at the rear garden she got the tiniest whiff of either perfume or aftershave. She couldn’t work out which, but it smelt familiar. She tried to pin down the smell and where she’d come across it before, but the memory was too far out of reach.