‘I don’t know what you want me to do, Emily.’ Rupert keeps his eyes on the road as the glow from the streetlamps lights his face in strips of black and orange. We are travelling back from his parents a day early, after a tense Boxing Day, the two of us barely speaking.

I huddle against the car door, watching the verge of the motorway speed past. ‘I want you to believe me,’ I say eventually. ‘I told you someone was… harassing me, I suppose. That’s the only way I can describe it. I showed you that text message I received on Christmas Day.’

And I had. After I had unwrapped the photograph of Rupert and Caro on their wedding day, Christmas had been ruined. Diana had swooped down and scooped it up, as I had rushed from the room in tears. Rupert had found me sitting on the edge of his childhood bed, my phone in my hand.

‘Here,’ I say, thrusting it towards him, ‘I got this earlier while we were on the beach.’ I watch his face as he reads it.

‘Who is it from?’

‘I don’t know, Rupert. An unknown number, just like the ones before. The other ones I told you about that you just brushed under the carpet.’ Bitterness leaches into my voice and I shake my head, tears dripping off the end of my nose.

‘It could be a wrong number.’

‘Jesus, Rupert.’ I get to my feet and start pacing. ‘What do I have to do to show you that someone is trying to get to us? To me? This is proof – how can I be exaggerating, or misreading something when it’s right there in front of you?’

I had snatched the phone back and refused to discuss it with him again.

Now, he says, ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you. I do. I saw the message. I was just trying to… I don’t know, make you feel better, I guess.’ He blows out a long breath and flicks on the indicator to come off the motorway.

‘We could call the police,’ I say, thinking of how Sadie suggested it before the holidays. ‘Tell them someone is harassing me.’

‘Really?’ He glances towards me but looks back at the road before I can read his expression. ‘I’m not saying this to brush it away, Em, but it’s just a couple of text messages. I don’t think they’ll do anything.’

‘But someone was in the house, Rupert, I heard someone when I was in the shower.’ Irritation makes me snap, and I bite the inside of my cheek hard in frustration.

‘I don’t doubt that, Em, but we don’t have any proof. Trust me, I had enough dealings with the police when Caro was alive – she’d get herself into a state, saying people were watching her. She called the police multiple times and they never did a thing.’