‘Six months,’ she’d agreed. ‘We’ll try it for six months, see how we go.’

But as they had packed their belongings, and the moving date drew nearer, something had begun to niggle at her. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was that woke her in the early hours, well before the baby stirred. Eventually she had dismissed it as understandable nerves at such a big change. And yet, the nagging voice refused to quieten.

Now, she picked at the torn leather on the armchair as she thought about their first few days in the cottage. The unsettling silence as she had unpacked boxes. The stillness each time she looked out of the window. The black descent of night; and the relentless ticking and chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall. As she sat there, it was hard to imagine the throngs of people and traffic swirling around central London, an endlessly shifting kaleidoscope of colour and movement. The last week at the cottage had felt like the longest of Grace’s life. The six months she had promised Adam now lay interminably before them.

She looked at her watch. Where the hell were they? Adam’s car was out the front, so they couldn’t have gone far. Just the thought of the two of them made her heart quicken. Since Millie had been born her emotions seemed to bubble fierce and strange beneath her skin, threatening to spill over at any moment.

Her mobile rang and she fumbled around for it among the packing debris, snatching at it before it could ring out.

‘Gracie?’

‘Annabel,’ she sighed, sitting back down.