‘I know.’ Tara pushed the bag into her arms before they both got any more emotional. ‘It’s mainly black and white, obviously …’ Ruth’s wardrobe was curated – long before the word became fashionable – into core components, accents and accessories. She and Keith had met at art college, where Ruth had studied Textile Design, and her clothes were beautiful: expensive dark trousers and perfect white blouses splashed with colour in the form of statement jewellery and elegant shoes. In the spare room, Tara had found unworn T-shirts and brand-new trousers, with a note attached for her tailor regarding ‘the usual’ alterations. Something about it pierced Tara’s heart.

A thought occurred belatedly to her, and she looked up at Diane. ‘Diane, I’m sorry – was there anything you wanted from Mum’s wardrobe?’

Diane’s sombre expression dissolved into a throaty laugh. ‘Me? In your mum’s clothes? I don’t think so, love. What do you reckon would fit? There’s maybe a scarf or something I could squeeze into …’ She stopped, then said, ‘You know what I’d like? That crazy rainbow necklace she wore. We had some great conversations about how hideous I thought that necklace was. Only Ruth could carry that off.’

‘I’ll bring it next time I’m here. You know, you could have taken whatever you wanted before you moved out.’

‘And you know I wouldn’t have done that. It was kind enough you letting me stay.’ Diane made it sound like a favour, but she’d cleaned the place from top to bottom, and been there with the kettle on the first few times Tara had had to go back to the house without Ruth in it. ‘Your mum would laugh if she could see where I moved to – my new flat is three doors down from her shop on the high street. Her happy place! I could have looked right into that famous window of hers.’

Tara smiled. ‘She’d be glad you were near the shops. Toby suggested we scattered her ashes down the high street, if Liberty wouldn’t let us.’

Diane blinked hard, then gave herself a little shake that would have been discreet if it hadn’t made three necklaces jingle and two scarves shimmer. ‘So have you got the Sindys sent off?’

‘Not yet,’ said Tara evasively.

Ruth had collected, amongst other things, vintage Sindy dolls. In her will, which Tara now suspected her mother had written after two bottles of white wine and a Poirot boxset, Ruth had bequeathed her sizeable collection to the Museum of Childhood in London. Tara was supposed to be in charge of arranging the donation but hadn’t done anything with them yet, aside from discovering they were quite valuable. It was tempting, given her own variable freelance income (and the fact that she technically now owned them), to stick them on eBay.

There was a cough. ‘Hello? I need to talk to someone about the food bank?’