Hmm. A nice reply, but it doesn’t sound like a message from a man who’s been thinking of me of late, I thought. Now I had access to his page, I scrolled through to see if there were any pictures of him. There were. There was one of him as a young man, which of course I recognized immediately. Others I had to look at more closely. Was that him? The chubby, bald, older man? Could it be that Bruno had lost his fabulous dark hair? I clicked on the photo and enlarged it. It was him. He was still stylish and impeccably dressed, in that way Italian men were, but he looked so much older. What had I been expecting? I asked myself as I glanced out of the window. It was thirty years since I’d seen him. I clicked through the rest of the photos. Bruno in an office, in front of a sports car, on various holidays around the world. I recognized the lakes, the Amalfi coast. Could he have sent me the flowers? The box? The Jo Malone? Surely not. He’d written in his message that it was a surprise to hear from me after all this time. That didn’t sound like someone who had been sending me romantic gifts. And if it was him, how had he got my address? Maybe the same way that Michael O’Connor had, through Matthew? That wouldn’t have been so hard, but Matthew would have told me if that had been the case. I stared at Bruno’s photo. What should I write in reply? Did I even want to respond? Could you be The One? I asked. I looked for the sense of recognition I’d felt when I saw Billy’s photo at the house in north London, that ‘Ah, there you are.’ The eyes are supposed to be the window to the soul. I zoomed in on Bruno’s. I didn’t feel anything. So no, not Bruno. I had a gut feeling that he wasn’t my mystery man and mentally crossed him off the list.

Next I clicked on the message from Kate.