‘Oh God!’ she said. ‘Oh my God.’

He turned to her. ‘What?’

She stared at the portrait again. Wide-eyed.

In a small, scared voice, she said, ‘You’ve seen her, too.’

29

Sunday 16 December

Ten minutes later, Jason and Emily sat in silence at the kitchen table. On the shelves of their old pine Welsh dresser, which looked oddly out of place against the rest of the modern furnishings, Emily had arranged the ‘Good Luck in Your New Home’ cards, as well as more of the Christmas ones that had arrived in yesterday’s post.

With a shaking hand, he filled their glasses from the bottle of red Rioja he had opened, while the chicken casserole and potato gratin sat uneaten in front of them, along with the salad. On the muted television on the wall, a woman on Antiques Roadshow was pointing at an assortment of jewellery laid out on a table.

‘Maybe I should heat this up again – I thought we should have something hot after our cold lunch.’

‘Thanks. Is this what we bought at the garden centre?’

She nodded, looking at him almost guiltily for using a ready-made meal. ‘But I made the salad,’ she said, as if by way of reparation.

He dug his fork in and ate a mouthful of the casserole, testing it. It was tepid, but tasty. ‘It’s OK, doesn’t really need heating up, it’s good – not as good as yours, though.’ He smiled. ‘Babes, never feel guilty about having a ready-made supper – I don’t, when it’s my turn to cook.’

She smiled thinly back. Then said, ‘It would be a lot nicer hot.’

He glanced at his watch, anxious to get back to his studio, no chance of a relaxing evening in front of the television. He was going to have to work into the night to get the dogs painting finished, and tomorrow he would have to do the pencil sketch of the King Charles spaniel for his other client. ‘I’m fine with it – we could heat it up for a couple of minutes if you’d like?’

‘I’m fine with it, too.’ She picked up her glass and drank half of it in one gulp. She was still looking shaken.

‘So, are we going to talk about it?’

‘About?’ She put down her glass, picked up her knife and fork and prodded her food. But she did not eat anything.

‘About the lady? Tell me what you meant, when you said, you’ve seen her too?’

Emily continued to stare down at her plate, pushing the food around more. ‘Yesterday morning, when I was putting my make-up on at my dressing table, I saw a woman in the mirror, standing right behind me. I turned around and she wasn’t there. I thought I’d just imagined her. Then last night when we were getting ready for bed, I was looking in the bathroom mirror, cleaning my face, and I saw her again. I knew I was a bit pissed, after the P-Ws had gone, so I figured I’d imagined it again – and I didn’t want to say anything in case you thought I was going nuts. But that drawing you’ve just done – that’s her.’