But he’s not.

And here’s the thoroughly illogical bit: something twinges inside me.

There’s an emptiness.

This feeling happens sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere. Like a big black hole opens up inside me and all of a sudden I’m scared that the rest of the world is right to couple up and I’m the wrong one, even though every damned day I’m given evidence to the contrary. Let’s all refer to exhibit A, Noah’s wife, shall we?

But reason doesn’t work in moments like these. In fact, I’ve only ever found one thing that does.

So I reach for my phone, go to my favourite dating app, and reply to Nicolas’s last message with: What are you doing tonight?

Nicolas is pronounced Nee-koh-lah. He’s already corrected me twice in the forty long-arsed minutes since we met. He’s wearing black jeans and a blue button-up shirt, there are coins or keys in his pocket that jingle with each step as we make our way down the rain-stained pavement towards his apartment. I was right, by the way: five foot eleven was code for five foot eight. But, whatever, he’ll do. I’m not looking for a soulmate, I’m looking for a palate-cleanser. A distraction from the existential angst.

My breath tastes like the Malbec I just downed, the moment his hand awkwardly found its way to my knee and he finally, timidly, suggested going back to his place like I’d been in that bar for his conversational skills. And now here we are, en route, at 8.25 pm. I’ll probably be home by 10 pm, which is perfect really. I’ll be asleep by eleven. Nee-koh-lah isn’t worth puffy eyes.

‘Is it far?’ I ask. This is the second time I’ve asked this question in the last three minutes. But Matilde Beaumont’s killer is still out there and Nee-koh-lah’s silence is making me jumpy. What if he’s really a psychopath and trying to remember where he left his duct tape and plastic sheeting?

‘Just on the corner,’ he replies, saving me from myself. He has a thick French accent that could be sexy, but when you’ve done this as many times as I have you learn to gauge things upfront. Things like: Nee-koh-lah is going to have a hairy back. Mark my words. So the two cancel each other out.

I wrap my arms around myself – I need to start wearing a thicker coat – and listen to our footsteps on the pavement. They’re just slightly out of sync: click-clunk, click-clunk, click-clunk. I hope the sex isn’t like that: jarring, wrong, but I do pelvic floor exercises; I’ll make it work.

‘Here,’ he says, smiling at me.

I wait as he punches in his door code – a flash of Noah, the joint, him punching in the door code that night at the gallery – and we move inside. His hand is hot on my lower back as he guides me down the hallway to a big white door.

He pulls out a metal key, inserts it into the lock, the door swings open and I move inside. He flicks on the light and I look around. It’s sparse, there are books on a light wood bookshelf and a kitchen that looks like it is rarely used. But there’s no Dexter-type set-up, just your stock-standard bachelor pad. I’m safe.