Georgie’s eyes widen and she jumps to her feet. She looks at Jack.

‘Who can that be?’ she says, her voice catching.

‘It’s okay, I’ll get it,’ says Jack. ‘Don’t look so worried, my dear. Burglars don’t tend to knock.’

He laughs nervously, then heads out into the hallway. We stand in silence, listening as Jack opens the door, closes it with a thud, then clatters back up the Yorkshire stone hallway.

‘It was just a delivery,’ he says as he re-enters the room, his face visibly relieved. ‘Another parcel for you, Vanessa.’

He places the brown paper-wrapped package on the table.

‘Right,’ he says, taking his glass of water from the table. ‘I’ll be in my study if anyone needs me.’

‘Surprise, surprise,’ says Georgie, rolling her eyes. ‘I think I’ll have an early night. You don’t mind, do you, Ness?’

‘Not at all,’ I say, though I’m not really listening to her. I’m too busy staring at the parcel in front of me.

When Georgie and Jack have left the room I pick it up and give it a shake. Something rattles inside.

I hear Georgie’s feet thudding up the stairs and Jack’s study door close, then I take the parcel up to my bedroom. It’s time I faced up to what’s happening.

Placing the parcel on the floor, I slowly slide the other three from under the bed.

The first contains the remains of the dress Connor picked out for me before the US presentation. It arrived a few days after I moved in with Georgie, ripped into tiny little pieces. The second was sent a couple of days later. I remember almost cutting my fingers as I put my hand into the box, where I found the silver-framed photo of me and Connor that used to sit on the mantelpiece in the bedroom, the glass smashed into little shards. The third parcel contains my childhood letters. I can barely remember writing them though I do recall how comforting I’d found the character of Angus. I must have written the letters as a kind of therapy then shoved them into a drawer and forgotten about them. When the parcel arrived I’d thought perhaps Dad had found them amongst the boxed-up stuff in the loft and sent them to me, but now I think Connor must’ve got hold of them somehow. The lack of a note, the neat wrapping, it all smacks of him. Which means, I realize, he isn’t giving up. And, what’s more, he has proof of my obsession with Geoffrey Rivers. What might he do with it? I dread to think.