My stomach lurched again. ‘No, Gar.’ I tried to smile. ‘Not today, I’m afraid.’

‘He was here the other day, you know. Such a dear boy.’ She leaned back and closed her eyes again. ‘He read me something.’

I looked at Susan and smiled sadly. ‘She gets more and more confused, doesn’t she?’

‘She’s right actually. He did come.’

‘What?’ I sat bolt upright. ‘Alex was here?’

‘He’s come a few times, bless his heart. Actually, it was after he left the other night that these turned up.’ Susan moved over to the lilies and pulled off a broken stem. ‘I mean, they’re lovely, aren’t they, cheer the room up no end – but it did seem a bit odd.’

‘You’ve lost me, Susan.’

‘To leave them here. I suppose he’s shy. Now you’ve split up. You know, to say how he still feels.’ She dug down into her pocket and came up with a half-packet of Tunes, a stub of a pencil –and a small envelope, instantly recognisable. My stomach turned over as if someone had flipped it like a pancake. ‘It’s addressed to you, lovie.’

I glanced at my grandmother, nodding back off to sleep, as oblivious to this threat as a newborn baby, and I wiped my damp eyes resolutely. I’d kill anyone who laid a finger on my grandmother. With unsteady hands, I opened the sealed envelope –but I already knew what it would reveal.

‘In Loving Memory,’ it said, next to a badly printed spray of purple flowers. ‘In Loving Memory of Maggie – and Vera.’

That night I slept in Gar’s armchair again, after accidentally polishing off the end of her sherry. I didn’t turn the light off till I woke up the next morning.

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

I arrived at work with a cricked neck, a sherry hangover and a truly foul mood. Sally was waiting outside my office, flicking through Hello!.

‘Your friend’s in here.’ She waved the magazine under my nose.

‘What friend?’ I scrabbled in my bag for my key.

‘That Fay girl, at some perfume launch. She’s very photogenic, isn’t she?’ Sally pointed at a small photo. ‘She looks a bit like you in this picture.’

I shuddered. Donna shot past, snarling into her phone. ‘You cannot be serious, Max. You promised me Kerry was hot to trot, not about to bloody OD.’

‘We need to talk about Joseph Blake, Mag.’ Sally dropped her voice theatrically. ‘You’ll never guess what he’s done now –’

The post-boy knocked on my door, bearing a beautifully wrapped basket of fruit and champagne with a glossy white envelope. My heart beat faster, my instinct screeched don’t open it – but to my huge relief, inside were two tickets to a concert at the Festival Hall that night and a handwritten note from Seb.

‘Guess what? Gershwin’s playing tonight,’ specially for you. Come with me, please.’