At eight a.m. the next morning, while Maisie is getting ready for school upstairs, I call the surgery.

When I finally get through, I have the good fortune to speak to a receptionist who I know very slightly from a local conveyancing issue a while ago, I manage to get Maisie the first appointment with Dr Yesufu on Tuesday morning.

I’m sure Joanne isn’t going to be impressed that I won’t be at the office first thing to brief her on my findings for the client meeting later that day, but that’s just tough luck. I feel like someone just gave me a good shake, and my focus and concern is definitely now off the job and back where it should be, with my daughter.

For now, I decide not to mention the appointment to Maisie. No sense in causing further tension.

As I end the call to the surgery, I hear mail dropping through the letter box.

I walk into the hallway and pause at the bottom of the stairs.

I pick up the small stack of mail and take it back into the kitchen. Flicking on the kettle, I discard the circulars and brightly coloured pizza delivery flyers and open the one remaining letter.

I don’t hear the kettle click, I forget about Maisie upstairs. It’s all I can do to keep standing.

I manage to get myself over to the seating area, where I sink down into the soft cushions and steel myself.

I read the note for the third time as the thin, cheap lined notepaper quivers in my shaking fingers.

The envelope is smaller than the regular office size, and my name and address are printed neatly and clearly in blue ink in the same hand as the note.

I’m no handwriting expert, but the print is even and the lines straight. I’d say the person who wrote this took time and care to get things right. They wanted to ensure that the note reached me safely, and that I – and only I – fully understand the short, loaded message within it.

They succeeded. In the last couple of minutes, my heart rate has doubled and my chest feels tight as a drum.

I sit down and allow the note and envelope to fall to the floor, but the words play on repeat in my mind.

The words drip with threat and a dark intention that chills my blood, but I instinctively know that if I take this note to the police, they’ll laugh in my face. Who could blame them? Take the note apart and there’s nothing there at all.

But it’s what happened before I received the note that drives the creeping sense of dread invading me.

The two unexplained flat tyres within a month that appeared to have been punctured without any obvious cause. Shaun had insisted at the time it was just bad luck and after a while, I’d forgotten about it. But now I’m beginning to reconsider…

There’s also the fractured opaque window of the downstairs bathroom that greeted me when I returned to the house two weeks ago. The glass wasn’t broken, just cracked, as if someone had banged their fist against it in temper.

And only yesterday, the decimating of our little rectangular herb garden, the young plants callously unearthed and scattered around the lawn.

I believe these are the ‘being in touch’ events the writer of the note refers to.

I could anticipate a police officer’s response without suffering the humiliation of seeking it: ‘The car tyres are probably just very bad luck, madam. An animal could have dug up the plants, and there’s no evidence of a brick or boulder to show that someone intended damaging your window.’

Something is off, though. I can feel disruption in the air, like the wind subtly changing direction. I just can’t lose the feeling that bad things are around the corner.

You see, I can never forget the threat that was issued to me two years ago.

If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll repay you for what you’ve done to me, the way you’ve ruined my career, my life. Keep looking over your shoulder, you utter cow, because you’ll never know when it’s coming.

But more importantly, I can never forget that the person who said it is dead because of me.