She unlocked the Formica cupboard and drew out the portrait. Under it was a file. She put the portrait on the bed beside her, and the file on her lap. When she opened it, she was careful not to let anything slip. The top sheet was a typed document.

FREDERICK EDWARD TILLYARD M.B on oath saith:—

I am a Registered Medical Practitioner and reside at 4 Brooklyn Chambers, Brooklyn Road, Worthing.

I was called at 8:30 a.m. on 2nd January 1932 to see a child at Castlemere. The child was dead when I arrived, but I think he had only been dead for a few minutes before. From the evidence of a fall downstairs and the appearance of the deceased, it would appear likely that death was due to a fracture of the skull.

I made a post mortem examination of the body on the Sunday the 3rd instant. There were no external marks of injury that I saw. The internal organs appeared to be healthy but there was a condition of hydrocephalus present and the skull was very thin; there was a long fracture of the skull about four inches long extending down the temporal bone to the base; beneath the fracture and between the skull and the brain there was a large clot of blood occupying about two-thirds of the side of the skull. Death was due to coma following compression of the brain from the clot, the result of the fracture.

(signed) FREDERICK E. TILLYARD M.B.

Clipped to it was the scribble from Miss Barnes.

To whom it may concern

As there were no family members in attendance and no instruction given, I took it upon myself to arrange a simple ceremony for Fagus.

She’d only stayed away because of Joan.

Please find the cemetery address and plot number enclosed.

A grave was no place for a reunion but it wouldn’t have been. It would have been just her.

❦

There was no piece of paper with address and plot number; not when she’d opened it the first time, on the 5th of January 1932, or now. No address or plot number had fluttered out from between his school reports and notes from the coroner, and although she’d written, although she’d tried, although she’d thought about it, she’d never found a way. She’d meant to. She’d wanted to. She almost had.

There was a knock on the door.

“That must be tea,” said Finetta, getting to her feet.

When Finetta opened it and stood back, Enid thought, by some stroke of incredible fortune, that it was Ivar come to see her – an older Ivar who hadn’t died, who’d lived and taken care of them all. But then Finetta said, “Ian,” and the spell was broken.