Yes, it was definitely correct. But then, on glancing at the time at the top of the screen she felt anxious on realising she needed to be back home very soon to give Cora her tea. Larry had agreed she could leave work early to come here and look for Connie, and Jamie had kept his promise to come along too, even though Blackheath wasn’t very far from where she worked in Greenwich. He had been true to his word and had come to Cohen’s to meet her, having arrived half an hour early, so had sat and chatted to Betty in the office while he waited for Grace to finish up checking in a new customer and teaching them how to operate the electric trolley, which really did seem to have a mind of its own, veering off in all directions apart from the one it was actually supposed to go in.

Jamie was currently bobbing up and down with his hands pressed up to the sides of his head as he tried to get a look through one of the big sash windows on the ground floor.

‘Come on, it’s obviously a dead end,’ Grace said, slotting the phone back into her pocket, resigned to not finding Mrs Donato after all, which was a shame as she had hoped to meet the glamorous lady. But she knew that it was highly unlikely given that Larry’s payment reminder letters had been ignored for all this time. From what Grace already knew about Connie, from the impeccably organised storage unit and her compassionate diary entries and notes, she had formed an impression of a meticulous lady of considerable substance, and not the kind of person who would just stop paying their bills and then ignore reminders. No, Grace knew deep down that her initial hunch must have been right and that Connie had died. It was just fanciful thinking to get her hopes up of a different outcome.

‘Not so fast. We can’t give up now,’ Jamie said, over his shoulder. ‘Try ringing one of the other bells.’

‘I can’t do that. And I’m not sure you should have your face pressed up to that window … what if someone is in there? And we don’t even know if that is the garden flat you’re peering in to. They might think you’re staking out the place with a view to burgling it!’

‘Don’t be daft!’ he hissed in an exaggerated stage-whisper voice. ‘They’re hardly going to think that with me in this get-up now, are they?’ And he ran a hand over his bright pink T-shirt with a bold white flamingo print splashed all over it.