‘No. That’s just it.’ Exhausted, I sink into the huge, squashy armchair. ‘I don’t think she did come today. Amanda said she thought she saw someone leaving at lunchtime and assumed it was her, around the time I was about to crack Sadie’s head open with a poker. But if she did work today, then why were your clothes still left all over the floor when I came home?’ I scrub my hands tiredly over my face. Any good feeling from our evening out has been washed away in a tide of mistrust and anxiety, and I feel the irresistible urge to fight to get it back.

‘Maybe she had to leave suddenly?’ Rupert frowns. ‘I don’t know, Emily. But I swear to you that I didn’t put that picture up there.’

‘What if it wasn’t Anya? What if someone else did get in the house? Because someone put it up, Rupert. I found a lipstick on the bedside table today… and it matches that shade.’ I can feel a mildly hysterical note creeping into my voice as I gesture towards Caro’s face, trying to push away the panic at the thought of someone breaking into the house, while at the same time I feel an overwhelming sense of relief that I wasn’t imagining things.

‘A lipstick?’ Rupert looks confused. ‘It probably is Caro’s; she did live here.’

There is something sharp underlying his tone and I have to blink hard, his words pricking my skin like tiny darts. ‘I know that, Rupert, believe me I am fully aware of how Caro lived in this house before me, but I still feel as though someone was in the house.’ I can’t help the bitter note that sours my tongue, my words coming out with a serrated edge.

‘Please, Emily, not this again.’ Rupert lays the photo down on the coffee table and comes to sit beside me. ‘Em, I’ve told you there’s nothing to worry about. Have you had anything else come to the house? Letters, texts, anything at all?’

I shake my head, avoiding his gaze. ‘No. But that doesn’t mean…’

‘It does, Emily,’ Rupert says softly. ‘No one wants to ruin things between us. I hate to say it, but you are being a bit paranoid – I went through all of this with Caro and I don’t think I can do it again, do you understand?’

‘What are you saying,’ I turn to face him, a sick feeling building in my stomach, ‘that you’ll leave me?’