‘Edward, this may sound very cruel to you, but what I’m suggesting is that we move them out of the house.’

‘How?’ He responded as if I’d suggested moving the Tower of London. The idea was incongruous to him. It was a feat beyond his imagination.

‘We’ll do it gradually,’ I said. ‘I’ll get some boxes and we’ll put some of the stuff in them.’

‘And then what? Burn the clothes? Send them to landfill?’

‘I’d rather not do either of those things. I can see there’s some lovely stuff there. Hardly worn, a lot of it. Some of it might have resale value.’ I made that sound unlikely. Second-hand clothes had to be a lot older and more individual to be of interest to the vintage retailers.

‘I’m not looking to make money out of my dead wife,’ said Edward Finch, almost insulted.

‘No, that wasn’t what I was suggesting,’ I quickly assured him. ‘Of course, it’s your decision, Edward, but my solution would be to take the best of the clothes, the stuff that’s still wearable, to a charity shop and then someone else could benefit from wearing them.’

‘What?’ He didn’t like the idea. ‘So, I might be walking round Lancing one morning and see other women wearing Pauline’s clothes?’

‘No, I wouldn’t take it to a charity shop on your doorstep. And a lot of the garments, I could see, were high-street brands. Other women will have bought the same styles as Pauline did, so you’d see them anyway.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Edward Finch anxiously.

‘Let’s give it a try,’ I said.

I was there a couple of hours that morning and achieved a modest level of success. Progress was slow. Each of his dead wife’s garments prompted some memory, where and when it had been bought, the events she had worn it to. But I’m used to hearing that stuff and I respect it. The past is important to people and I would never deny anyone the right to their own reminiscences.

By twelve o’clock, we’d got two cardboard boxes full of clothes out of the bedroom and into the hall. And when I say ‘we’, I mean it. I consulted Edward Finch on every item before he agreed that it should be transferred.

There was still a lot scattered over the bedroom, but I felt we’d made a meaningful start. The Yeti boot was full of the stuff from the hall. I was tied up with other clients the next day, but I proposed coming back the same time on the Friday morning to take the boxes of Pauline’s clothes.

He was agreeable to that. He seemed more relaxed than he had when I’d arrived. Perhaps actually starting to move his wife’s possessions made him realize that, though a painful process, it was achievable.

We were making progress.

In the car on the way back to Chichester, I heard the one o’clock news. The body found in the burnt-out flat in Brunswick Square Hove had been identified as that of the legendary war reporter, Ingrid Richards.