Terry Lennox worked for people who owned places like the Glass House. It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to work out why his daughter wants to buy it.

‘We might not get it,’ I warn. ‘That house is a landmark. The owners are going to be fighting off buyers.’

‘We’ll get it,’ she says confidently.

My wife is a mass of contradictions. She’s cool and forensic; she’s passionate and hot-tempered. She can be chillingly detached when she assesses our children’s flaws, but she wouldn’t think twice about killing to protect them. She has absolutely no self-doubt when it comes to her work, but she’s so afraid of being hurt she’s never learned to make friends. And she’d rather believe herself a sociopath incapable of human connection than admit that particular truth.

But when Millie sets her mind to something, there’s no stopping her. Like I said: it’s all or nothing with my wife. If she says we’ll get the Glass House, I believe her.

Put it this way: I wouldn’t want to be the person standing in her way.

chapter 06

millie

The estate agent twitches her high blonde ponytail forward over her left shoulder. It’s her tell: she does it every time she’s about to lie.

‘The Conways are interested in several other properties,’ Julia says. ‘A bit more competitively priced, I’m afraid, Mrs Downton. But I’ll let you know if they’d like to come back here for a second viewing.’

‘That’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’ve got several offers on the table already, so just email me before Friday if they want to put in a bid.’

‘Friday?’

‘I’m asking everyone to make their best offer by the end of the week,’ I say. ‘I’ll review them and make a decision on Monday. I think it’s fairer than the back-and-forth of a bidding war, don’t you?’

She swallows. She’s nervous and tentative just at the moment she should be assertive and bold. Most of her lipstick has gone now, a pale pink smear on the lip of the plastic water bottle she’s been toting from room to room as I’ve shown her and her buyers around. Her white skin is stretched over birdlike bones; a blue vein pulses at her temple.

‘The Conways have a lovely little pied-à-terre in Putney,’ she says. ‘I believe it’s about to go under offer. I know they’d be able to complete very quickly if they decide to put in a bid after all.’

I watch the young couple as they confer beneath a silver birch tree in the small, walled garden to the rear of the house. Earlier, I pushed back the frameless glass accordion doors that run the width of the sitting room, opening up the entire space to the outdoors. Frankly, on a warm summer day like this, the house sells itself.