‘Just for the minute,’ I told her, not wanting to expand. Not wanting to explain, as I had done to Ned, about how I no longer felt the need to control a cast of characters, in a way that I couldn’t control my own life. I no longer needed that power. And it was a power. It was I who rounded their personalities, moulded them into shape, gave them little traits, peccadilloes, foibles; I who delved into their past, their families, discovered what made them tick. The autonomy I lacked in real life was exerted on my cast – my friends, actually. They were so real to me, and I became so close to them, that I always felt genuinely sad to say goodbye. And then needed that gap, in between books, before I could take my leave of them, and create some more. Except Susie, of course: she was my constant. She prevailed in every book. My best friend. I could rely on her, always. But I didn’t need her now. And that had been such an extraordinary revelation. A bombshell, actually. Susie was as dead to me as Michael was. Helena hadn’t lived here as Ned had done. She wouldn’t fully understand. She’d question, pick holes. Talk about displacement mechanisms being what drove many people to creativity, but that couldn’t be the whole picture, she’d argue: find other ways to enable me to pick up my pen. Because, of course, if I was busy, my family didn’t have to worry about me. She’d settle down to flex her argumentative muscles, which I really didn’t want. Luckily, the girls were nudging each other, and seemed to be building up to something.

‘Go on, spit it out.’ Their mother sighed, easily distracted by her offspring.

‘Apparently,’ Tess turned to me, perched back on the window seat beside her sister, ‘Imo said that when you tidied up the house, you found some clothes of hers. She said you saved them for us. She texted us.’

‘Is it true?’ breathed Maudie, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands as if in prayer.

Imo was their absolute idol. They stalked her constantly on Instagram, and made no secret of their adoration. In fact, there’d been a little scene at the funeral as they’d fought to sit next to her. Luckily Imo had two sides, and Dad had changed places with Maudie with a grin.

I got up and handed them a black plastic sack from under the piano. ‘Here you go. Feast on that. Bags, belts, all sorts.’

‘Oh – and hats!’ Maudie exclaimed, nearly disappearing inside it. ‘And proper Levis! Jewels! Dresses – boho dresses – oh deep joy! No, Tessy, I saw that first – no!’

‘I’ll take that,’ said Helena, wrestling the bag from their hands. There was an unseemly tussle. ‘To be sorted out at home,’ she declared, but she looked flustered and I knew she’d struggle with that.