As soon as I got outside, a wave of relief broke over me, stronger than anything I had experienced in my life, and I cried out, laughing and clasping my hands together like a child. I didn’t care about the strange looks I was gaining, I had never felt such elation. There was a busker playing old folk songs in the corner – badly. I gave him the entire contents of my purse. ‘Good luck, lady,’ he said, scooping up the cash. ‘Good luck to you!’

‘Thanks,’ I replied. But before I could go home and wait excitedly for Nick’s return, there was something else I needed to do.

Nick’s safety had been everything for me. But now that I could almost feel him back with us, my mind turned to a different task, one that touched on my own safety rather than his. I was determined to recover the final memories of how Lorelei had died. Because someone had been there that day – I had seen them in the mirror – and whoever they were, they had let the suspicion of her death fall on us. What if they came back, preferring to see us all buried or imprisoned rather than able to expose them?

There was something I had once seen on a newsreel. A doctor had explained different methods of treating soldiers who had been badly affected during the War. One technique forced them to confront fears and situations that they had been shying away from in civvy street. It seemed to work for them, so I hoped it would work for me.

And so I stood again on the threshold of Lorelei’s black-and-white-tiled bathroom, with my hand on the cold copper bath. The taps were stiff and it took much of my strength to turn them, until the freezing water burst out, rising rapidly while I turned my attention to the radio set in the corner. The face glowed for a moment when I flicked the switch, before light music played, and a woman’s voice was heard, talking about her day. It wasn’t Lorelei but, somehow, the more I listened, the more it seemed to become her voice, glistening like ice.