I drive home slowly, carefully, paranoid that I’m going to crash the car and ruin my cover story. The traffic is slow and heavy – a combination of rush hour and Christmas shoppers. At last, I turn into my road and allow my shoulders to relax. There’s a parking space opposite the house. I pull into it and then check the street is clear before darting across the road and in through my front door. Like a rabbit bolting into its burrow.

My heart pounds, but I can’t relax yet. I empty my coat pockets, slip off my trainers and my coat, and pad into the kitchen, where I retrieve a bin liner from under the sink. Back out in the hall, I put the old trainers in the bin bag, along with my spare coat and the rest of my clothes, relieved that I least didn’t wear my thick parka for fear of being recognised. Maybe I’m going overboard – after all, I only broke a window. I didn’t steal anything of value. I didn’t kill anyone – but I’ve watched enough crime dramas to know that disposing of clothes is the very minimum precaution I should take. Next, I run upstairs and shove the bag containing Bella’s hair into a suitcase that’s under our bed. Then I throw on some fresh jeans, a jumper and some boots, thunder back down the stairs, grab the bin bag and open the front door.

Our road is deserted, so I make a dash for it and dump the bin bag on the back seat before getting into the car and driving away a little too fast. I travel a couple of miles – away from the direction of Kate and Shaun’s place – to an out-of-town car park that has several large recycling bins. I drive over to the clothing bank and park right next to it. There’s no one else in this part of the car park apart from an older woman standing in front of one of the bins. Getting out of my car, I see she has a boot full of cardboard boxes stacked with bottles. As she feeds each one into the bottle bank, the smash of glass reminds me with a shiver of where I was earlier. Of what I did.

‘Work Christmas party,’ the woman says as I pull down the door to the clothing bank. ‘In case you thought all this lot was mine!’

I give a brief smile and nod before turning away and depositing the refuse bag full of clothes into the bin.

‘I think you’re supposed to take the stuff out of the bin liner,’ she says as another of her bottles smashes into the bottle bank.

‘Oh, okay, thanks.’ Sometimes, I really wish people would mind their own business. I upend the bin bag and shake out its contents.

‘You must be chilly,’ she adds.