‘Well, maybe… and this is just an idea… but perhaps if the memory of Caro is so strong in there that you don’t want to use it, perhaps we should consider knocking it down and starting over.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘But why? We could knock the existing orangery down and rebuild it, change it slightly so it’s ours. We could even build it double-storey so there is more room for when we have a family.’ I hold my breath, waiting for him to respond.

‘I said no, Emily. I don’t want to use the orangery – maybe in the future I’ll change my mind. And I certainly don’t want to knock it down. I can’t believe you’d even suggest something like that.’

‘OK, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ I go to him on shaking legs, curling into where he sits on the sofa and lay my head on his shoulder, breathing in the scent of him. It still doesn’t mean anything, I try to tell myself, but as I sit there, fake laughing at some stupid TV show, pretending that everything is all right, the same questions keep revolving in my mind. Why, when I said that Caro could still be alive, was Rupert so insistent, so adamant that she was dead? They never found her body, but Rupert is convinced that she is dead – is that because he knows something we don’t? And is that the real reason why he neither wants to use the orangery nor tear it down? Because he feels guilty? Or for some other, more sinister reason?

Chapter Thirty-Three

A man in his late forties, with a closely shaved head and tidy beard, wearing dirty Levi’s and work boots, is loading stuff into a pick-up truck, as I approach the address I’ve found online for the builder Rupert used to build the orangery. I thought Rupert would never leave this morning, as I sat and sipped at my tea, pretending that nothing was wrong, that my heart wasn’t beating so hard in my chest that I was worried I might pass out. Half of me still hopes that I have jumped to the wrong conclusion, that Caro took her earrings out before she stormed off, that Rupert really just doesn’t want to spend the money Caro left him, but the other half of me – the half that believes in instinct and that more than one coincidence is too many – believes that Rupert could have done this. Now, today, if the builder tells me that there was a legitimate reason for building the second soakaway, then maybe I can give Rupert the benefit of the doubt and find another explanation for why Caro’s earring lay hidden beneath the dressing table.

‘Excuse me?’ I catch the builder just as he is about to hop into the truck. ‘Are you Nick Williams?’