‘We went to London on the train. The tube was hot. We missed the census at home,’ she reads, and then snaps the book closed. This is none of her business. ‘I’m sorry, Georgia, I shouldn’t have done that,’ she says and puts it back on the shelf carefully.

A small pile of papers lies beside the computer, and she rifles through them, looking for anything relating to train tickets or hotels. There is nothing useful.

‘Which means the information I need is in here,’ she says, tapping the top of the computer screen. ‘I wonder if you are password protected?’

She sits down on the office chair, presses the power switch, and rests her fingers on the keyboard. The Mac comes to life. Enter password, it demands. She remembers trying to guess the PIN on Patrick’s phone and feels a sudden chill, but pushes on. She cannot afford to waste any attempts.

She looks around her for clues. Beside her, the filing cabinet with its idiosyncratic ordering system is still open. Would Georgia have written them down and filed them? She opens the drawer and checks through the tabs. It is there, right in front of her. DROWSSAP (S).

Inside is a single sheet of paper. In Georgia’s neat handwriting are all the passwords for utilities and online shopping and the library. Tess runs her finger down the list.

There is no password for the computer.

Where would she have put it? Tess’s thoughts are racing and she tries to slow them down and apply logic. ‘Georgia knows that one day someone might need to get into her papers, so she’s sure to have written it down. But where on earth is it?’

It has to be somewhere a burglar wouldn’t look, she reasons, but at the same time easy for anyone who actually knows Georgia to work out. Tess gets up from the chair and begins to pace back and forth along the small room. She looks under the keyboard, and kneels down to look behind the filing cabinets, but there is nothing. She cannot afford to make an error. She stares at the screen and the image of Finlay fades and is replaced by the screen saver. She wiggles the mouse and he reappears. She looks again at the password list, and there it is.

MOTHERSHIP.

And beside it, ‘Finlay1916’ has been crossed out, and a single word is written below.

She lets her hands rest on the keys and types with her eyes closed, as though being able to touch type is the most natural thing in the world. Dots appear one after another with each keystroke.

G r a n d F a t h e r

And there in front of her is the image of Finlay, in his officer’s uniform.