I’d rather you stay, Dr Salmon. I’d worry about you driving back so late.

Jules cut a wake between them, making for the hall closet. Her back to them, she began to hang up her outdoor trappings.

Where has she got to go? she asked, erasing Gabrielle from the hallway.

Brighton, said Gabrielle. It’s okay—

Logan reached for her arm. No, no, you’ll stay. Jules, will you make up the guest bed?

Of course.

And his wife had passed back between them and ascended the stairs, and he had hooked his guest’s coat safely into the closet on top of his own. And later, had lain like a rotting log beside his wife’s awake but unmoving body, not knowing what to say. Because how do you explain the sudden appearance of a young woman with red hair, red fingernails and impractical shoes to a wife with whom you can barely discuss curtains? How can you communicate, without appearing insane, that you believe this archetypal Other Woman has been conversing with your dead daughter? And if this suspect guest offers even the smallest possibility you could talk to your dead daughter too, how can you serve up the fragile dish of your hope to someone so likely to dash it?

Jules not here? asks Gabrielle, flamingo-legged on the threshold of the back door, levering off the borrowed wellies with difficulty.

No, he says, watching her Flora-ness with unease.

Before long, she is back to being Dr Salmon, buttering her toast with an unforgiving enthusiasm that tears it up like galloped turf. She lines up the jams, twists their labels before her, then singles out the blackcurrant, undressing it from its Victorian servant headwear and popping the underlying clingfilm with glee.

This is nice, she says.

That banned word again.

You haven’t tried it yet.

No, but they’re all nice. Look at them. Handwritten labels. Countrified. Made with love. Old school. My mum used to do this kind of thing for a bit.

For a bit?

Until she got tired and buggered off.

You went with her?

No. Well, only after Dad hanged himself.

She is knifing a generous dollop of blackcurrant jam onto her plate.

Oh my God, says Logan. I’m so sorry. The professional response would have been, Your dad hanged himself? But instead he is fighting a prickle of tears.

Why are you sorry? she asks, looking up. Then understands. Ah, right. No. It’s me who should be sorry. I forget, this upsets people.

Doesn’t it upset you?