‘Blimey! How intriguing,’ Jamie exclaimed through a mouthful of strawberry jam on extremely buttery toast – he had made several rounds to go with their tea, declaring this a very justified moment for some good comfort food. ‘But desperately sad too. Do we know what happened to the baby yet? Was she adopted?’

‘I honestly don’t know. Maybe Connie will tell us soon. There are lots more diary pages and scraps of paper to look at, but it’s slow going trying to piece a proper timeline together as they don’t seem to be in a logical order.’ Grace took another mouthful of tea as she nodded towards her laptop.

‘But you already have clues to investigate,’ Jamie suggested.

‘Such as?’ Grace put down the mug and lifted her pad and pen, poised to note any ideas that Jamie might have.

‘Well, her address in London for starters.’

‘What do you mean? The post from there was all returned with “Not known at this address”, so we know that she doesn’t live there any more.’

‘Fair enough. But a neighbour might know where she moved to, or how about the person who does live there now? Somebody wrote on the envelopes and put them back in the post. Somebody kind. Somebody who cares. I couldn’t be bothered with all that.’ He let out a long sigh before cramming a jammy crust into his mouth.

‘Really?’ Grace quizzed as she turned to study her best friend. She was surprised by his attitude, as she thought Jamie was the kindest and most caring person she knew, alongside Larry and Betty of course. ‘So what would you do then if post arrived for someone who used to live at your house?’

‘That’s highly unlikely – you know we’ve lived next door for as long as I can remember. But I guess I’d chuck it in the bin,’ he said and shrugged.

‘That’s terrible.’ She batted his arm. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Why not? Of course you can. Unless it had a credit card inside or something like that … then I’d open it and pocket the card ready for some seriously fraudulent online spending. Card and address details right there. Bingo!’ He rubbed his hands together in glee.

Silence followed.

‘You idiot!’ Grace proclaimed, when the penny dropped that he was messing around and teasing her.

‘What?’ He pretended to cower as she batted him with her pad. ‘Oh Grace, as if I would do a thing like that! You are so gullible. Always have been.’

‘No I’m not!’

‘Ouch. That hurt,’ he laughed, going to grab the pad away from her grasp.

‘Sorry,’ she mouthed, halfheartedly.

‘Ah, don’t be. It’s just nice to see you smile, Grace. You can’t blame me for pulling your leg … I had to do something to lift your mood as you looked so down when I was staring at you through the window.’ He grinned, cheekily.