I’d been out since eight that morning, doing back-to-back cleans, and all I wanted was a hot bath and a glass of wine. I’d sent Poppy to the chippy to avoid having to cook and put Noah to bed half an hour earlier than usual by altering the clock. It was a cheap trick, but I didn’t do it very often and Noah need never find out. Now Poppy was upstairs doing (or at least pretending to do) her homework and I turned my attention to the letters on the kitchen table. They were mainly circulars and marketing rubbish that would go straight into the recycling. The last one, though, was an actual letter. It was addressed to Mrs M. Allen. I looked at the envelope for clues but there was nothing so, feeling curious, I opened it. Mum had been gone for fifteen years and I couldn’t remember the last time there was any post for her.

Dear Mrs Allen, the letter began. We act for the titleholder of your property.

What? I didn’t know much about the law, but I was pretty sure the titleholder was the owner, and I was the owner. This was my house inherited from Mum when she died. With a racing heart, I read on. The titleholder now wishes to realise their asset and therefore you are hereby given notice of the requirement to leave the said property by 31 August. If you fail to leave the property by that date, we shall apply for a court order to that end.

I read the letter again and then for a third time, but even though I could just about translate the legalese, the essence of what it said made no sense. This was my house. There was no one else who could evict me. I didn’t even have a mortgage. That was one of the things that Mum had always been so proud of.

‘We’re debt-free, Leah,’ she used to say. ‘No one can look down their nose at us because we own our own house outright. That makes us better than all them round here. Most of them don’t even own their own televisions, let alone their house, and them that do will owe the bank a pretty penny, you can be sure.’

I picked up my phone, running a finger down the letter to find a contact number. It was an 0191 number – Newcastle. I dialled, but as it rang out I realised that the office would surely be closed at that time in the evening. It would have to wait until morning.

But I couldn’t possibly wait. I had to know what this was about. Now! Who could be writing me such threatening letters, and on what grounds? It didn’t make any sense. Something wasn’t right here. I could feel my mouth going dry as my mind leapt from possibility to possibility, none of them adding up.