‘Maybe,’ I said, because I couldn’t add any more than that. I couldn’t tell her that I knew he hadn’t.

It turned out that tinned tomato soup didn’t make good pasta sauce.

When Sasha went to bed, I looked up Gus Simpson, Joe’s brother, who was surprisingly easy to find. He lived in our town, and when I saw his photo I gasped. It was so bizarre to see someone who looked a lot like Joe, but who was nearly forty. If he wasn’t so old he would have been quite fit. Not as much as Joe, but almost. The whole thing made me feel extremely strange.

And then I saw his family. Gus had two daughters.

I needed to meet him, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I could hardly send him a message explaining that I’d met his brother’s ghost and needed to talk. I read everything I could on his Facebook, but he didn’t say much (or if he did his settings stopped me seeing it): he put up pictures of his family and tagged his workplace, a legal firm in town. Maybe that would work. Could Sasha and I need a lawyer?

I clicked on his partner’s profile. She was called Abby Fielding, and she looked nice. Friendly. The children were maybe about eight and five.

I thought about it for ages, and then made a flyer advertising my brand-new, just-invented services. It said:

Hi! I’m Ariel (like the mermaid). I’m sixteen and I’m an experienced, reliable babysitter. If you need any babysitting or childminding I’d be happy to help at evenings and weekends. Ages two and up, reasonable rates. References available. I love kids and love hanging out with them.

It sounded crap (and contained lies), but, from what I’d read in Abby’s profile, she might go for that kind of thing. Mums probably loved friendly girls who’d play with their kids and had Disney names. I would print it at school tomorrow, just one copy, and then I’d find their address and put it through their letterbox.

On Saturday morning I woke late and scrolled further and further back through Abby’s Insta until I found that, back when Mum was still alive, she had posted a photograph with the caption: I’ll never take this view for granted .

The picture looked as if it had been taken from an upstairs window. There was a distant sea horizon, a leafy tree in the garden, and between the two, I was almost sure, was the park with the cricket pitch. The whole thing was framed by pink curtains.

I was looking at the view from Gus and Abby’s window.