For a second I couldn’t believe he’d said it, Nick who never cursed and hated me doing it. ‘Nothing happened!’ I tried the stock adulterer’s approach, to be met with a hard stare.

‘Don’t lie to me. You can’t help yourself – you’re, Jesus, you’re like some desperate nympho, aren’t you?’ I almost laughed at the seventies sleaziness of ‘nympho’, but managed not to. This conversation wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. But really, what had I expected? Understanding, tears and hugs? How stupid I was.

‘I was just lonely. He was nice to me. I know it was wrong, but you have to believe me . . .’

‘Believing you would be a real exercise in stupidity.’ He stood up, pacing. ‘I knew there was something going on. I just hoped I was wrong. Why do you think I trace your phone? Set up the smart alarm? You know it tells me every time you enter and leave the house? You know there’s security cameras I can watch you through when you’re here? I see you, crying all day long. Was that for him? Starting my dinner with minutes to spare. You think I don’t know? You must think I’m really dumb.’

I gaped at him. ‘You trace my phone? You – stalk me?’ Suddenly I understood. How he always seemed to know when I hadn’t been where I said. When I’d gone out for hours instead of the quick walk I told him about, or vice versa. When I hadn’t done each household chore exactly to his liking.

He laughed. ‘Jesus, you’re stupid. You did it yourself! What do you think Find My Friends is for? If you weren’t so clueless, you could have turned it off. I told you about the alarm system, that it worked remotely, that we could check on the house on the cameras whenever we wanted. That you can even talk through them, if you see an intruder. You weren’t even listening. You never listen to me.’

‘And – the music? The temperature?’ Those were all controlled remotely too. Had Nick really been behind all this? The dead animal, the message in the snow? It was him making me feel I was slowly going mad?

He shrugged. ‘Sometimes I’d get angry. Seeing you here, with all the things I bought you, crying and moping. For another man, as it turns out.’

I felt sick. All this while I’d breathed a sigh of relief when the door shut in the mornings and he was gone, but really Nick was sitting in his office, watching me, turning the temperature up then down again, making songs play, locking the doors, changing the codes. So I’d think I was crazy. Like his little doll, walking stiffly through the rooms of his perfect house. ‘Nick, this is insane. I could go to the police.’