I nod and pull away, tiredness tugging at my bones. We’ve been travelling for over twelve hours and with a five-hour time difference, jetlag is already starting to kick in. ‘OK. I expect you’re right.’ And he probably is. I haven’t lived here for very long, and I don’t know every creak, every groan of the house like I did in the flat. I feel a sudden wave of longing for my tiny, cluttered bedroom, the thud of Mags’s terrible music coming through the wall. No, Emily, I think, this is who you are now. This is what you chose.

‘I’ll make us some tea.’ Rupert kisses me on the forehead and I feel that tickle of irritation toward him dissolve a little. I’m sure he is right – I’m just overtired and thinking things that aren’t really there. ‘Why don’t you get into bed? It’s nearly one o’clock, and I have to be up at six for work in the morning.’

As Rupert leaves the room, a chilly draught settles over my skin again and I shiver more used to the warm Caribbean breezes of the past two weeks, than the autumnal September air we’ve come home to. Shivering, I move towards the en suite, intent on running a cleansing wipe over my tired face and brushing my teeth, when I see where the draught is coming from. The window in the en suite is open a little, not wide open, but pushed to as though someone has forgotten to latch it. It’s not a huge window, but it’s long and wide and potentially someone could get through it if they wanted to. Which means the fact that it is open doesn’t make any sense. Neither Rupert nor I would have left this window open, not when we were leaving for two weeks. I rack my brains, thinking back to the morning after the wedding. I definitely remember shutting all the windows upstairs because I had thought to myself how I never had to worry in the flat, being above the takeaway.

Now, I tiptoe across the bathroom floor, the underfloor heating warming my toes as I reach up and peer through the crack in the window. Just as I thought, the large recycling bin is under the window, to the left of the orangery, right where I left it, only… I push the window wide open and look out as far as I can. The recycling bin is on its side, a small spillage of plastic and a couple of glass bottles on the patio beside it. That doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself, my breath coming fast in my throat. A fox could have knocked it over. Maybe there was a storm.