I sat down beside her, realising I was crying, too. Not hysterically like Julie but, nonetheless, my face was wet and I felt as if a knot of tension or grief or anger wanted to escape from my body in shuddering sobs.

‘Give me one of your cigarettes,’ I said to Julie.

It was enough to make her take a breath and look at me, her eyes narrowing.

‘You’ve not smoked since we were sixteen.’

‘I don’t care. It’s either a cigarette or the vodka and I’ve got to drive home to the kids, so the cigarette’s safer. Give me one.’

She fumbled with the white-and-blue packet in front of her and handed me a cigarette. Gingerly, my own hand shaking, I lifted it to my lips and inhaled as Julie helped me light. The hot smoke caught at the back of my throat, making me cough and shudder.

‘Jesus! this is vile,’ I said to Julie as I tried, and failed once again, to inhale the smoke deeply.

She looked at me, I looked at her. Then I put my cigarette down in the ashtray and pulled her into a hug.

‘What are we going to do without her?’ I cried.

‘I don’t know,’ Julie mumbled. ‘I don’t even know where to start.’

‘I think we start by throwing these papers in the bin where they belong,’ I said, reaching down and lifting them before folding them and carrying them out to the recycling bin.

It was only as I walked back in that I noticed the bouquets of flowers in vases on the kitchen table. All still wrapped in their cellophane. Among them, stems wrapped in black ribbon, was a posy of forget-me-nots, a familiar-looking small white card pinned to the ribbon. That uneasy feeling was back, but this time it was stronger.

‘Who are the flowers from?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice steady as I walked back into the living room.

Julie was staring at the bottom of her mug. She didn’t look up.

‘People from work. My sister … I don’t know really, Brendan’s been taking care of them. I’ve not even had the energy to look. I just told Brendan to put them in water. They’re not going to do much good, are they? They’re not going to bring her back.’

I lifted the posy of forget-me-nots, the satin-wrapped arrangement.

‘This one’s unusual,’ I said. ‘Do you know who sent it?’

‘No … I didn’t look. Why do you ask?’

‘Well, it’s just quite unusual and there was something similar left up at the spot in the road where Clare died. It stood out from the other tributes.’

Julie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Read the card if you want.’

She put her mug back down and lit another cigarette.

I unpinned the card from the flowers and read it. Again, a message was written in blue ink. Again, something cryptic.