Our local police station isn’t far away, so within minutes of making the call a marked police car pulls up outside the shop on double yellows. By this stage, I can’t even bear to touch the letter and it’s back in its envelope, lying on the counter. I unbolt the front door and let the two uniformed officers – a spotty male and a female with a short, no-nonsense haircut – into the shop. The female officer looks like she’s my age, late twenties or thereabouts. The male officer looks a bit younger, or maybe he just has a baby face. But, however young they are, dressed in their black uniforms with their boots, stab vests and utility belts, they seem to fill the whole shop with their official-ness.

‘Are you Elizabeth Beresford?’ the female officer asks in a Wiltshire accent.

‘Yes, I’m Lizzy,’ I croak.

‘You reported an anonymous letter?’ she says.

I gesture to the back of the shop, to the counter where the envelope now sits, pulsing with menace. The two officers wait for me to lead the way. Will they think I’ve overreacted by calling them? After all, it’s just a harmless piece of paper. But no, it’s not. It’s a threatening statement. A statement that’s letting me know someone is watching me. And that’s not normal behaviour, surely?

I lead them over to the counter and point to the envelope.

‘Have you touched it?’ she asks.

‘Uh, yes. Sorry.’ I feel foolish. Of course I shouldn’t have touched it with my fingers, I should have used something to pick it up with.

The female officer slips on a pair of gloves, picks up the envelope, slides out the letter and reads it. She shows it to her colleague who gives a single nod.

‘When did you receive this?’ she asks.

‘It was posted through the letterbox just after I locked up at five thirty-five.’

‘Did you get a look at the person who posted it?’

‘No.’ I take a seat on the wooden stool behind the counter, suddenly feeling wobbly on my feet. ‘I was cashing up, here, by the till. So I wasn’t looking towards the front of the shop. After I finished, I had a quick tidy round the shelves and that’s when I noticed it… the envelope lying on the doormat. It wasn’t there before, when I locked the door.’

‘Have there been any other letters or anything else unusual?’ she asks.

I nod.

They stare at me encouragingly, waiting for me to continue.

I slide off the stool. ‘There’s another note. I’ll fetch it.’ I go into the stockroom to get my handbag and return to the counter where I slide the dusty envelope out of the side pocket and give it to the woman officer.

‘This came through the door, too?’ she asks.

‘No.’ I shake my head and sit back down. ‘I found it yesterday. At home.’

She takes the first note out of the envelope and they both read it.

‘You found it?’ the male officer asks.

I take a breath and tell them how I discovered the note sticking out of the floorboards in the kitchen. Then I point out that the note has yesterday’s date on it, even though it looked like it had been under the floor for years. ‘Someone must have left it there. Which means they came into my house.’

The female officer lays both letters flat on the counter next to the envelopes with my name on. ‘Do you live alone?’ she asks.

‘With my boyfriend.’

‘Could he have—’

‘No. It definitely wasn’t Joe.’

She takes a phone out of her pocket and fiddles with it for a moment. ‘How long have you lived together?’

‘Just over five years.’

‘And he’s never done anything that might make you suspect him of—’

‘Never. He wouldn’t do anything like that.’

She starts taking photographs of the letters and envelopes. ‘Do you have any idea of who it might be? An ex-boyfriend? Someone with a crush?’

I make a pretence of thinking, but in reality my mind has gone numb. I’m so shaken up that I can barely string a thought, let alone a sentence, together. ‘Can you find out who it is?’ I ask. ‘Test the letters. For fingerprints, or something?’

‘Unfortunately, as there’s nothing specifically threatening in the letters, there’s not a lot we can do,’ she says, putting her phone away. ‘But I’ve taken photos, so we’ll keep those on file in our system, just in case.’

‘But someone’s admitted they’re watching me! Someone has broken into my house!’

‘Was there any sign of a forced entry?’ she asks, gathering up the letters and envelopes and passing them back to me.

I take a breath. ‘No. Not that I could see.’

‘Was anything taken?’

‘No, not that I know of. But someone must have come in to leave the letter.’

She peels off her gloves and puts them away in one of her many pockets. ‘Does anyone else have a set of your house keys? Or have access to them?’

‘Only my landlord, but he’s been our landlord for years and he’s also my boss. He wouldn’t do anything like this, I’m sure of it.’

‘I’d strongly advise you to change the locks,’ she says.

‘My boyfriend was going to change them last night, but he never got round to it.’

‘Well, I’d make that a priority. And if anything else untoward happens, please let us know.’

‘So, is that it? Can’t you do anything? Try to catch the person responsible?’

‘I know this has probably been unsettling for you, but we find that in these types of situations, whoever it is will usually get bored and stop. Once you’ve changed the locks, your house will be more secure. In the meantime, please try not to worry.’

Easy for her to say.

I want them to tell me they have it all in hand. That they’ll catch the person doing it and make sure they never come near me again. But I guess that type of policing only happens in the movies. In reality, they’re too understaffed to waste resources on a couple of weird letters. I toy with asking the officers to give me a lift home, but would that be cheeky? Being a taxi service isn’t part of their job description. The thing is, though, I don’t feel safe. Not at all. Someone out there has said they like to watch me work. So that means they could be watching me right now. They might know that the police are here, but they may not even care. It may not faze them in the slightest.

I can’t bring myself to ask the officers for a lift, and they don’t offer. They leave, and I lock up once more, watching them get back into their car and drive off. Now that they’ve gone, the shop is suddenly bathed in a menacing silence. My skin itches. My stomach swirls. How am I supposed to leave the safety of the shop and walk home on my own? I can’t do it. Not even if I walk the long way round and avoid the isolation of the Abbey. I can’t believe this is happening. Who could be doing this? Who is behind these awful letters?