“Right, let’s take it from the top again. Izzy, can we freshen up Lucia’s powder, please?”

Justin, the director, started talking to the two lead actors about commitment to the scene while the makeup artist refreshed their powder. Jess pulled her thick padded coat tighter around herself, wishing she’d had the foresight to put tights on under her jeans and thermal socks inside her sneakers. The trouble with filming in listed buildings was that they were perennially cold, especially in late February. She’d warned the producer, when she’d first found this location a stone’s throw from Spitalfields Market, that she feared it was one of those buildings that would be arctic no matter how many portable heaters they installed, but he’d wanted to go ahead with it anyway.

The director’s assistant called for quiet and the cameras started rolling again before the two lead actors launched into the scene for the ninth time.

Jess sipped the sugary tea rapidly cooling inside a styrofoam cup corniced with the firm indentations of her teeth. She put the cup on the floor, undid the makeshift bun she’d wound her hair into at 5 a.m., and tied it back tightly into a ponytail, her hair protesting at the roots. Watching the monitor as the actors worked their way through the scene, she tried to quash her frustration that she was on set at all. Professionally she knew she had to be there today but that didn’t stop her wishing she wasn’t, didn’t stop her resenting the fact that she wasn’t at home helping her mum to unpack instead. Her mum had said that she understood, that she’d be fine and had lots to sort through, that she’d have Mia for company. But Jess knew how difficult it was for her to give up the house she’d lived in for forty-five years, the house which had seen all the defining moments of her mum’s adult life.

“Excellent. That was great. Right, let’s take a fifteen-minute break before we reset downstairs. Jess—where’s Jess?”

Jess swallowed hard as she walked across the seventeenth-century mahogany floorboards into the first-floor drawing room, where Justin was sitting in a canvas-backed folding chair.

“Jess, Sam says there’s a dodgy plug socket on the top floor where we’re filming later. Could you check it out? I’d rather not electrocute the entire crew on the first day if we can possibly help it.”

Justin laughed, and Jess fabricated a smile, mumbled a reply, and trudged up the stairs, her toes beginning to numb in her sneakers.

Locating the loose plug socket and covering it with black gaffer tape while cursing herself for not having spotted it sooner, she glanced back down the stairs to check that no one was on their way up before pulling her phone from her pocket and switching it on.

No messages, no emails, no missed calls.

She dialed Mia’s number, the tips of her fingers stiff with cold, five rings trilling in her ear before she heard a breathless answer.