I wish my mum could say yes.

“I suspect that I couldn’t conceive with Ben through guilt,” I say. “I know it sounds stupid, but I lied to him not long after we first met. I pretended I was pregnant. I thought I was doing the right thing, moving us along. Ben could be so bloody indecisive. But I was wrong.”

I can’t bring myself to confess everything, but it’s enough for now. I brush her hair and straighten her cardigan, then worry that I’m overfussing before I leave. Still, I do feel slightly lighter afterward, like I’ve been given permission to enjoy some of the August holidays.

Even so, the week drags. I take the children strawberry picking and on one particularly wet day, to an indoor play center. Still, not-so-distant, inexplicable dread lurks.

I visit the midwife, attend prenatal classes and it’s freeing to get out of the house, which has shrunk around me. Stuart doesn’t like me going out for too long “in case something happens.”

“Like what?” I say. I don’t need any fuel for my fears and paranoia.

He shrugs. “I like to know where you are.”

“I can look after myself.”

“I’m not saying you can’t.”

Nonetheless, it’s suffocating and oppressive.

He’s particularly stressed about being in the middle of nowhere when we’re in Dartmoor (it’s not that cutoff if the situation arises), but still, it was much harder to win him round to the idea than I thought it would be.

The threatening cards dry up. Maybe it was Deborah and now that we’ve had a little heart-to-heart, she’s decided to back off. Until now, my money was definitely on Tamsin. It could even have been more than one person, which is a horrible thought. I hate not knowing and being suspicious of everyone, from people in the book group to my neighbors. Whoever it is has decided that it’s not worth the risk because of the camera, which records nothing but genuine visitors, post and delivery people. I waste hours of my life viewing endless film, staring at the gravel on the driveway, scanning for suspicious passersby on the lane.

Perhaps there really is nothing to fear.

The night before we go away, having packed and completed all the necessary tasks, I pace downstairs, desperate to feel comfortable. I’m forced to give up and pour all my energy into my photo project: the one to celebrate Nina’s memory. I turn the pages. There’s something so rewarding about capturing a moment that will never be repeated. Even now, I still enjoy catching people unawares. It drove Nina mad, but only when she didn’t like the picture.

“I look too fat, too miserable, my hair looks crap...” she’d moan.

But when she liked them, it was different. She’d get me to print extra copies, and we’d experiment together with black-and-white and color effects. Any money I earned from my Saturday job was spent, not on clothes or stuff, but my photo-taking hobby. I told Nina I’d destroy any photos that she didn’t like, but I didn’t. However much people say they hate pictures of themselves, they’re a part of history.