‘Shall we start upstairs?’ I said.

The pair of them followed me to the top of the house and I felt my love for this place, our big, beautiful Victorian pile in this quiet corner of Camden Town. Did we really need to leave? What was so great about starting again? Why did we need to start again somewhere else? This house had been our only real home and I felt a surge of sadness at the thought of moving out. I wanted things to stay exactly the way they were.

James Caine was silent as I gave him the big tour, his expression totally blank as he took in Marlon’s bedroom and the upstairs bathroom, and he only lingered when we came to the master bedroom. He stood at the end of our bed, taking it all in, almost as if he were inhaling the room.

Tara, I saw, had left a nightdress on the back of a chair.

This slim slip of silky stuff that slid up and came off so easily.

Date-night kit. Prosecco wear.

I waited for Caine to break the silence with some comments or questions about the house. But he just stood there, staring at the nightdress. It seemed to fascinate him. The silence grew between us. It didn’t seem to bother him. He could be as mute as his teenage daughter when he wanted to be.

‘So you’re moving to the city?’ I said.

He started at my voice, turning his smile on and the awkward moment was over.

‘Well, we might. With our family home down in Brighton, I have to stay up in town when my work demands it. For my sins! I’m here in town, as a matter of fact. At the Langham – do you know it?’

I nodded.

‘Opposite the BBC in Portland Place. It’s a grand old hotel. A lot of history. Amy’s school has kept us down on the south coast but she is off to university next year so everything will change.’

Amy leaned against the doorway, unsmiling and unimpressed. Caine gave the bedroom one last look before turning away.

‘Coffee?’ I said, hoping he would decline, hoping he would make his excuses and leave, hoping that he could not imagine his family living in our house.

‘Cheers,’ he said.

We went downstairs and as I made coffee, his daughter drifted off to the car while he went into the living room. When I brought in two cups and a cafetière he was examining my record collection, his fingertip carefully tracing the cracked spines of my old LPs.

‘Quite a collection,’ Caine said. ‘How much is it worth?’

The thought had never crossed my mind.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s priceless.’

He chuckled as if that was my little joke. As if everything had a price.

He selected an LP and pulled it out. On the cover a beautiful young man with tangled long hair and a sad face stared from a window at autumn’s falling leaves.