‘I don’t want to talk about Caro,’ Rupert snaps. ‘This isn’t about Caro, it’s about you. I’m sorry, Sadie, I can’t see you for a while, not until I get my head straight. I’m finding it all a bit hard to process, to be honest.’

He is blunt with her. Rupert has only agreed to see her today because she hasn’t stopped calling since the day Emily came home and told him it was Sadie who had done all of these things, things he had written off as Emily being a bit paranoid, to his shame. Now, he shoves back his chair and snatches up his jacket. He hasn’t told Emily that he’s taken today off work, wanting some time to himself to process everything, but now he feels the urge to go home and tell her he’s sorry. For everything.

Rupert stops in the upmarket supermarket on the High Street on the way home and picks up a fancy meal for two that he will prepare this evening, along with two bottles of decent red wine. Emily is worrying him, with all her talk of Caro, and knocking down the orangery. Tonight, he will put any negative thoughts out of her head, once and for all. He can’t afford for her to keep pecking away at him about Caro, he’ll snap if she does. Maybe he’ll stop thinking about booking that holiday in the sun and actually book it – that should take her mind off of everything. The self-service checkout beeps at him and spits his bank card out, and he looks around in frustration for a member of staff.

‘There’s something wrong with this till,’ Rupert says, as he picks up the bag of groceries.

‘I’m sorry, sir, it’s not the till,’ the girl says, ‘your card has been declined. Do you want to try it again?’

Rupert pushes his card back into the machine and once again it is declined. He shoves the bag of groceries back at the cashier and storms out of the store, his face burning as he calls the bank from his mobile.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Milligan, your card was declined due to insufficient funds.’ The woman on the other end of the line is aloof, bored almost.

‘No, that’s not right,’ Rupert feels his blood pressure rising, ‘can you just check them again, please? All of them?’ He waits a moment, before the woman tells him the exact same thing. Insufficient funds. On every bank account he holds. ‘There must be some sort of glitch your end. I hope you’re going to pay out compensation for the inconvenience.’