My mother has spent the last year relentlessly campaigning against the council’s plan to place a new stretch of the E18 motorway exactly through where my childhood home stands.

‘Of course, I now have to do much of the work on my own. After what happened with Elisabeth, Idun just can’t face doing what needs to be done, so I’m doing it all. To be honest, she can barely get out of bed in the morning.’ I nod, but a visceral dread spreads out in the pit of my stomach and I focus on chewing my food slowly, so I can’t be expected to respond. I knew my mother would want to talk about Elisabeth. It’s only natural, considering, but I’m still reeling from her loss and find it difficult to manage my emotions when her name is dropped into the conversation without warning. ‘I don’t think she’ll ever get over it,’ continues my mother. ‘Such a terrible waste. In spite of everything, she didn’t see it coming.’

I nod again and look outside to the garden where Elisabeth and I used to play as children. I decide to bring my feelings of guilt and grief over Elisabeth to my own therapy tomorrow, like I already have, over and over, since August.

Elisabeth’s family have always lived next to my own, in a house the mirror image of my family’s. Our gardens border each other, separated only by a low hedge, which became trampled and mangled over the years as Camilla and I constantly scrambled across it to get to Elisabeth. Because we were friends from before I can remember, I have no recollection of any firsts – the first time we met, the first time we laughed together, our first sleepover. She was just always there. Elisabeth was an only child, which makes her death an even crueler tragedy for her mother and father. As a child, she was jealous of me having an older sister. She used to say that she was the third sister and, well into our teens, she’d introduce me to people as her sister.

Elisabeth was intense, creative, moody, fiercely intelligent. She’d come up with the games we’d play and all the kids in the neighborhood generally followed her lead. I remember her as always having an audience, whether it was just me or many other kids too. It was always The Elisabeth Show. We loved her. She’d become famous and celebrated when we grew up; this was accepted among us kids as fact. But she didn’t. She died in what should have been her prime, in the most tragic of circumstances.