Then we drove to Dodge’s. He looked terrible. The bruises on his face and arms had found a whole new palette of colours. I made him some nettle tea before I left. I’d watched him often enough making it for me. And I’d brought a picnic lunch for the pair of them.

Making the furniture for Amy had not been a first for Dodge. He’d made stuff for children before – there was always a need for it in various charities. But, until the addition of the Frozen stickers, everything had been in plain wood. I’d suggested once or twice that maybe Ben could bring his skills to decorating the stuff, and Dodge had not ruled out the suggestion. But my son was rarely around in West Sussex, so the idea had never been followed through.

Till now. I thought it was the perfect short-term solution. Like his father’s, Ben’s gloomy introspection could be eased by having a project to get on with. A physical, practical project. And Dodge was in no condition to do anything for himself. I thought I’d devised a good mutual-aid scheme. Which might offer some stability at least until I’d talked to Tracey and hopefully got some idea of what was going on in my son’s life.

But Tracey couldn’t meet me till early afternoon, so I’d made a morning appointment to visit Edward Finch again.

The bungalow in Lancing looked extremely tidy. Whether that was due to the efforts of Edward or his long-suffering friend Cara, I had no means of knowing.

Even better, in the hall, neatly piled up against the wall, was a pile of boxes. They were new archive boxes, available from any stationery supplier. I was impressed by the fact that Edward had been organized enough to buy them. It suggested he was beginning to take the task of removing Pauline’s clothes seriously. Very definitely, a step in the right direction.

He looked pleased, almost smug, as he saw me take in the pile of boxes.

‘All her stuff in there?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Come and see.’

Ceremoniously, he led me through to the bedrooms. The first one, where he had been sleeping, was also much tidier than when I last saw it. So was the bathroom, which we had to go through to reach the master bedroom.

There, the transformation was complete. To demonstrate how totally he had fulfilled his brief, Edward had left the wardrobe and the dressing-table drawers open. Except for a clump of his clothes on hangers, pushed up to one end of the wardrobe rail, everything was empty.

‘Well done,’ I said, and I meant it.

‘Yes,’ he said with modest pride. ‘It wasn’t easy. But I managed it.’ He looked around the room. ‘And this no longer feels like Pauline’s space.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘You can keep your memories of her, without needing the constant prompt of her belongings.’

‘Yes,’ he said, almost dismissively. ‘And also, of course, it means I can move on to the next stage of my life.’