This ritual completed, he’d usually go back upstairs to his bedroom, leaving his pan in the sink, which Alexa would invariably wash up while Ellen rootled in the cupboard for something else to eat. She wondered whether Jack was happy in London. Apart from his friend Johnny and the people he worked with, she wasn’t sure who he spent time with. She felt mean about Risk now.

Granted, if Alexa was working late, or was at the gym, Ellen and Jack would catch up over dinner, although Ellen wasn’t sure how much Jack got out of her stories about Felicia’s various crimes.

‘And apparently she wants a “core team” of us working over the May bank holiday,’ Ellen had exclaimed one day last week, as Jack stirred his soup at the stove. ‘I mean’ – putting her fork down in order to gesticulate – ‘who is shopping for CBD tampons over a bank holiday weekend?’

‘Yeah,’ Jack had replied, with feeling, after a pause to check Ellen was finished telling her story. ‘That’s definitely weird.’

‘I think she’s a sociopath. We did a test for her online and she hit all the markers.’ She sighed. ‘How’s your job going?’

Another pause.

‘Oh, it’s OK.’ He’d turned off the stove and transferred the soup to his bowl. ‘I don’t really like it when I have to answer the phone.’

Ellen had made a sympathetic noise through a mouthful of whatever she was eating.

‘It’s fine when I get to do it over the messaging service.’ Jack had walked to the table to sit down. ‘Speak to the customers, I mean. But I hate having to use the phone.’

Eventually, these conversations would peter out amicably, and they’d finish up and then retreat to their own bedrooms. She hadn’t been inside Jack’s since Sophie moved out – only stood on the threshold. She remembered lots and lots of odd socks.