CW: This scene depicts a controlling relationship.

Ophelia Beauchamp sat at her bedroom window, looking out into her garden with a hot mug of tea. She stared out into her rose bushes and the flowerbeds that she'd worked so hard on.

'Gorgeous weather, isn't it, Timothy?' she said.

'Most unseasonable for February,' Timothy commented. He turned away uncomfortably. Ophelia's husband avoided the garden. He had done for a long time. It was a pity. He had no reason to avoid it. It was time he got over all that unpleasantness. It wasn't helping him, let alone her.

'Timothy, how about this year, we plant some rose bushes at that wall at the back,' Ophelia said with a slight smirk, gesturing to a spot near the greenhouse where the grass grew slightly lusher and longer than the other parts of the lawn. Timothy stared at where she was pointing as if he had seen a ghost. He mumbled something incoherent.

'Pull yourself together, man,' Ophelia snapped in irritation. 'The past is the past. There's nothing to be done about it.' She stared at him, annoyed. 'Is there?'

'Yes, yes, of course,' Timothy said. He hovered by the doorway of the couple's bedroom, before shuffling away downstairs. He might be getting old before his time but Ophelia was not. It made her angry sometimes, how afraid he was to say boo to a goose. That wasn't the man she had married.

The man she had married had been willing to do anything to make her happy.

Ophelia stirred the sugar into her tea with a spoon. A car pulled up nearby. Ophelia's neighbours didn't seem to work, but they were always driving all over the place. Their detached house was nicer than Ophelia's, but they didn't take care of it. They didn't take care of themselves, she thought. She had gone in there for a bake sale once. They were too young to not be working. They were probably living it up on benefits. Pursing her lips, she put her teabag on the saucer.

She was startled when there was a sharp knock from downstairs. They weren't expecting visitors.

'I'll get it, dear,' Timothy muttered. Ophelia got up and walked to the top of the stairs, stared as he reached the bottom. Her hip was starting to give her some trouble, but she wasn't the type to moan about it. That was the problem with society, people complained too much these days. She never complained.

If there was a problem, she did something about it. That was the way she was brought up.

'Good afternoon,' came a deep, Scottish voice. 'My name is DS Alex Mackie, this is my colleague DC Greg Coles. We are following up on a list of guests from the Crime Convention who may have information on a recent incident. Can we come in?'

Timothy hesitated. 'Of course, you'd better.' 

Intense anger flooded Ophelia as she descended the stairs, not least anger at Timothy for letting the police into her beautiful home. This was a respectable street, a marvellous property in a gorgeous country village. What would the neighbours think if they saw police cars in her drive? If her neighbours saw them parked there for too long, tongues would wag and there would be little chance of being re-elected to the parish council. At worst, it would drag up all sorts of other messes that Ophelia had little time for.

'May I ask what this is regarding?' she said. Greg Coles and Alex Mackie had already moved into the drawing room and sat down. They had not taken off their shoes.

DS Mackie looked awkward and uncomfortable. 'I'm sorry to trouble you, Mrs -'

'Beauchamp,' Ophelia sighed. She adjusted the glasses on her nose as Timothy sat next to her, perched on the edge of the settee looking pale and weak.

'Mrs Beauchamp. I'm sorry to disturb you. We would just like to ask you some questions, then we'll let you get on with your day.' Alex Mackie gave her another awkward, shifty look. He wasn't sitting up straight and his shirt was untucked. Her two wouldn't have got away with looking like that.

'Go ahead,' Ophelia said, swallowing her irritation.

'Did you hear or see anything suspicious on the opening night or in the morning at the convention?' DS Mackie said. His foot twitched as he spoke. Ophelia hid her distaste, successfully, she supposed.

She glanced at Timothy, feeling tense. 'No. I don't think we did, did we, Timothy?'

Timothy shook his head. 'No, no. We didn't. The whole thing was suspicious, in a sense.'

Ophelia felt her jaw tense. Her back stiffened. DS Mackie looked at her husband blankly. 'Can you elaborate on that?'

'The decor. All this promotion of serial killers. Not something I find particularly tasteful.'

Ophelia exhaled in relief. 'I quite agree, dear. No, we were in bed by ten thirty.' She gave a self deprecating laugh, then forced herself to be polite although she inwardly seethed. 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

Both officers shook their heads. 'No thanks,' DC Greg Coles said. 'But thank you very much for the offer.'

'I'm all right for tea,' DS Mackie said in his Glaswegian accent. 'You didn't hear any sort of argument, or anything like that?' DS Mackie said. Glancing at Timothy, Ophelia saw him shake his head quickly. She drank her tea out of the porcelain mug she had received as a gift from the vicar when they were married many moons ago.

'Come to think of it, yes I did.' Ophelia laid down her cup on a coaster on the glass coffee table. 'I know it was 3.35, because I heard a dreadful racket. A couple of women were shouting and swearing and heaven knows what, and I looked at my watch. It is a digital one, and it monitors your heart rate and blood sugar and tells you how much exercise you have done. It was a gift from my son for Christmas. Rather incredible.'

'And that was 3.35?' DS Mackie said.

'Yes. Yes, I believe it was.' Ophelia laid her hands in her lap. 'Loud enough to come through the walls, though neither of us could make head or tail of what was being said.' She gave the officers a regretful look.

'Thank you,' DS Mackie said. 'We'll look into this.' He turned to Timothy. 'Did you hear anything like that?'

Ophelia looked at Timothy. He quickly said, 'Yes, I was woken up around that time. It must have been because of all that thumping and carrying on. It went on for several minutes, but I'm afraid I soon went back to sleep.'

'Thank you,' DS Mackie said. 'We'll leave you in peace now.' He took a business card from his wallet and handed it to Timothy. 'If you think of anything else, you can call me on this number, day or night.' The two detectives got off their chairs. Ophelia rose sharply from her seat.

'I'll show you out,' she said as they began to traipse out of the drawing room. Specks of dirt came off their shoes onto the light cream coloured carpet. It could be a metaphor for their presence in this house, Ophelia thought as she stared and waited for the officers to leave. They lingered too long in the hallway. DS Mackie kept glancing upstairs as he was putting on his coat.

'Lovely place you've got here,' DC Coles said.

Ophelia smiled. 'Thank you very much. We've worked hard.'

'Thanks for your time,' DS Mackie said as his colleague finally opened the front door. 'Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Beauchamp.' The police officers exited the house and Ophelia watched them through the large French window as they trudged through the gravel driveway. Ophelia tried to read their lips as they spoke between themselves, facing her house, but it was not a skill she had ever mastered. Her eyes followed them as they turned towards their car, and as the car pulled away from her drive.

She walked back into the room where Timothy was sitting, his face red and his hair ever so slightly dishevelled. His nerves irritated her, they always had, but now they were becoming intolerable. 'I don't know why you're looking at me like that. It isn't us they're after.'

'Ophelia, my darling,' Timothy said in a hesitating voice. 'Don't you think this has gone too far?'

'What has?' Ophelia stared at him.

'All of it.' He stared at her in his pathetic way. 'We shouldn't have become so involved, I realise now. We shouldn't have given those policemen a reason to show up. They might be back, and then -'  

Ophelia glared at him for a few seconds, then slapped him hard across the face. Her hand stung and she rubbed it. 'Excuse me. We shouldn't? Going to that convention was your idea, let me remind you.' She drew a breath. 'Do you want me to repeat what you said again?'

'You're right,' Timothy said. 'I only worry that they might return -'

Before he had finished his sentence she slapped him again, harder this time. He was infuriating her today, even more than usual. 'You're the man of the house, aren't you?' She smiled at him. 'It's your job to take care of that if they do.' As she spoke, her phone began to ring on the dining room table. It had a loud, piercing ringtone that sounded like a school bell.

It was probably the head of the Residents' Association, she thought as she briskly marched over to it. Ophelia knew the insufferable woman had only been elected for diversity reasons. Faith Ayoade had done nothing to address the epidemic of antisocial behaviour the village was experiencing. Her solution involved providing 'young people with opportunities' that involved vandalising historic walls with ugly scrawlings. The thought made Ophelia's teeth clench, rage that did not subside when she saw that it was not Faith but a private number.

'Good afternoon? Ophelia Beauchamp speaking.'

'Ophelia?' her caller said. 'Where were you yesterday?'

'Of course,' Ophelia said. 'I'm so sorry. It must have slipped my mind. I'll get it this week.' She gave a tinkling little laugh. 'I'm still not used to online banking, you know.'

'Online banking? We agreed you would go to the place I mentioned, and give the whole lot to me in cash. I waited for an hour and you never showed up.' The caller sounded angry, and no doubt would remain so for a long time, but Ophelia wouldn't give into unreasonable demands.

'I'm a little forgetful in my dotage,' she said in her best sweet, old-lady voice. 'Do forgive me.'

'Don't fuck me around,' the caller snapped, and Ophelia gasped. Nobody spoke to her like that.

'Mind your language or I'll hang up.' Her voice was calm. On the other end of the line, the caller was breathing heavily, spluttering and gasping. Ophelia put the call on speaker so that Timothy could listen, too. She gave him an amused grin. He did not smile back.

'Then give me my fucking money, Ophelia,' the caller hissed. 'Remember, I know where you live.'