The lunch was very good. Given the location, it was no surprise that the menu featured a lot of seafood. Excellent seafood, imaginatively cooked.

Alexandra was keen on the idea of sharing a bottle of white wine and disappointed when I said no. I don’t drink at lunchtime during the week. Preservation of my driving licence again. And preservation of the focus I need for work. Alexandra suggested that I should just have one glass, but again I said no. If I had one, I’d want another. In such circumstances, I always find it easier not to drink at all. Sorry if that sounds priggish.

‘So,’ I suggested, ‘I’ll raise a glass of sparkling mineral water to Ingrid’s memory.’

‘Fine,’ she said, a little grudgingly as she ordered it, along with a glass of Pinot Grigio for herself.

‘I am, incidentally, Alexandra, very sorry about your mother’s death.’

‘Oh yes. Thank you.’ She didn’t sound interested in my condolences. ‘So far as I’m concerned, it’s just a huge relief.’

The force with which this was said made me wonder whether Alexandra had already had a drink that morning. Though it’s a common instinctive reaction, there is still an atavistic taboo about admitting one is pleased by the death of a family member.

She seemed to remember that and attempted a cover-up by saying, ‘All I mean is that I’m glad Ingrid went while she was still more or less in control of her faculties. She would have loathed the gradual degeneration of age, hated not being able to do the things she enjoyed doing. The thought of Ingrid in a care home … well, it doesn’t bear thinking of. She always said she wanted a quick sudden death that she knew nothing about.’

I wondered how closely being incinerated in a top-floor flat fitted that definition, but I didn’t say anything, as Alexandra went on, ‘Ingrid would have hated losing control.’

‘Wouldn’t you say,’ I suggested, ‘that allowing her flat to burn down from what … an inadequately stubbed-out Gauloise … meant that she was already losing control?’

‘Perhaps.’ The drinks arrived. Alexandra immediately took a long swallow from hers. I didn’t think it’d be the only one she had over lunch.

Then she said, ‘Of course, because of the way things happened, you never did report back to me about whether you thought Ingrid needed your decluttering services.’

‘Sorry. I was busy the next day and—’

‘No worries. I think we left it that I was going to ring you, anyway.’ She took another substantial swallow of Pinot Grigio. ‘She liked you, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Ingrid. She really liked you. When you went to see her. And she wasn’t a woman to take an instant liking to everyone, so that’s quite an accolade.’

‘I’m suitably honoured.’ And I was. I had been instantly at ease with Ingrid Richards, but I wasn’t convinced until then that the feeling had been mutual.

‘What, incidentally, Ellen, was your professional view?’

‘As to whether your mother needed the services of a declutterer?’