When I see the sign for Toad’s Hatch, I take my compact out of my handbag and have a look at myself. I’ve kept my make-up dewy and understated, with a liberal use of highlighter on my cheekbones to give the impression of inner wellness. My hair is swept back in a loose bun tied together with a wooden clip. All good.

As I set off down the broad driveway I practise my opening greeting, taking care to stick to the flat vowels of New York-born Eleanor. There’s a silver car parked up outside the house. As I draw level with it the door opens and a sharp-faced woman with cropped red hair steps out.

‘Ros Coverley,’ she says brusquely, extending her hand. ‘You must be Mrs Hawkins?’

I open my mouth to reply that it’s actually Ms Hawkins but before I can get the words out Ros Coverley is striding ahead of me towards the house.

The squat, white building looks as though it has sprung out of the ground. It’s nothing like the photos on the app. As I draw closer my heart sinks. It looks more like a prison than a potential wellness centre.

When we reach the glass front door, Ros Coverley takes a square fob out of her pocket and points it at the alarm panel. A green light flashes and the glass door opens.

‘So, Mrs Hawkins,’ she says as we step into a vast hexagonal space that appears to be made solely of glass and metal, ‘you didn’t say what your position is. Are you chain free?’

‘Er … yes,’ I say, scrambling for the New York accent I had perfected on the train. ‘I’m a … a cash buyer.’

She frowns, her eyes locking on me.

‘A cash buyer?’ she says incredulously. ‘I see.’

I gulp down my nerves as she leads me across the nuclear wasteland that is the entrance hall towards another set of glass doors that open automatically as we approach. It feels wrong, all of it.

‘Through here to the living area.’

I follow her through the doors and into what looks like the inside of a spaceship. The walls are white and sparse, and everywhere I look there are panels with flashing lights, like the alarm at the front door. It feels as if I’ve stepped into some kind of interrogation centre. Beside me, Ros Coverley does little to dispel this feeling.

‘You’re from New York?’ she says as we step from the soulless living space into a kitchen that has all the warmth of an industrial refrigerator. ‘My partner’s a New Yorker. Whereabouts are you from?’

I take a breath to buy some time, try to remember the bio I’d put together for Eleanor Hawkins so effortlessly, but my mind is blank.

‘I … er … grew up in … Manhattan,’ I say, almost swallowing the word back down.

‘Oh, really?’ she replies, her eyes flashing. ‘What district?’