‘Well, you do need to sound like you know what they’re talking about,’ I reply, mock-serious.

‘You’re right there. It’s research.’

It’s our in-joke. Rory pretends he needs to learn how to be an alpha male, like his brothers, when really we both know he loves football.

He chuckles to himself as he returns to his cooking and I dart into the bedroom on the pretence of drying my wet hair. But really I want to look out of our bedroom window. From here I have views of the street I’ve just walked down and I pull back the roller blind to get a better look. A young couple are weaving across the cobbles, laughing too loudly, arm in arm and obviously holding each other up. Across the road from us, a derelict building is going through the planning process: it’ll be converted into apartments. Is that a figure I see loitering in the doorway? I press my face to the glass but, no, it’s just a trick of the light. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

I comb through my damp hair, then go and find Rory in the kitchen, happy now I know there’s no threat, just my imagination running away with me. ‘Thanks for making dinner,’ I say to him. I don’t need to add again. He’s always the one cooking. He says he enjoys it and finds it relaxing, even though it looks like a bomb has hit the kitchen after he’s finished with it. I survey it now: a dirty spoon left on the black granite worktop, dishes and cups filling the sink. He usually leaves all the clearing up to me. I don’t mind – I’d rather stack the dishwasher than cook any day. Jack jokes that if I married Rory the cooking would soon stop, that it’s his way of lulling me into a false sense of security. But I don’t believe him. Rory’s too honest.

He brushes back my hair so that he’s looking at me. Really looking. He has these brilliant blue eyes and when he stares into mine I almost squirm because it’s as though he can read my mind, as though he knows every evil thought I’ve ever had, or the horrible dark things I’ve done, like the real reason we had to leave London last year. Or the guilt I carry about what I did that summer of 1994.

‘What’s going on, Jessie?’ he says now. He’s the only one who’s allowed to call me that. The way he pronounces it in his sexy Irish accent gives me a little thrill. ‘Something’s bothering you, isn’t it?’

I move away from him to pick up a spatula and dump it in the sink. He’s still studying me when I turn around. ‘It’s just work.’