“She can’t remember what she had for breakfast. She doesn’t recognise her own children most of the time, but sometimes things come back to her, from when she was younger. Actually she was telling me about the birth only the other day—a bit too much information, to be honest. Maybe it’s the weather, triggering something in her mind. She thought it was still the seventies.”

“So, I can talk to her?”

“I suppose it’s worth a try. I can’t promise she’ll give you the answers you want. Some days she doesn’t say a word.”

*   *   *

High-backed armchairs lined the room, most of them empty but one or two occupied by an elderly person. A care assistant was helping one of the residents to drink through a straw. Amy and Harper waited in a corner, smiling at orderlies, refusing offers of tea. When Robert arrived, late and hassled, he greeted the staff by name, then introduced himself to Harper and Amy before leading them through to the far side of the sitting room and down a corridor to his mother’s room. The man was tall and rangy, physically similar to DI Thrupp but with none of the self-confidence. He wore brown leather sandals and a slightly defeated expression that stayed in place even when he tried to hide it behind a smile.

Outside the room he placed one hand on the door handle and turned towards them.

“Just, don’t expect miracles, OK?”

They nodded and he led them inside.

Victoria sat in a chair by the bed, her unfocussed eyes staring at a spot not quite near enough to the TV screen for her to be seeing the images flashing there, soundlessly.

“Hello, Mum,” said Robert, taking a seat next to her and gently lifting one of her hands into his own. “I’ve brought you some visitors.”

The woman’s head swivelled slowly towards him. Her faint smile faded as she took him in. “Who are you?”

“It’s me, Mum. Robert.”

She pulled her hand away, frowning. “Robert who?”

“Your son, Robert.”

“I don’t know you.”

While the men and women in the sitting room were curled and ancient, the woman in front of them was young in comparison. Only sixty-eight years old, her hair still mostly brown, her skin mostly unlined. She turned her body away from Robert’s and Harper saw his shoulders droop slightly with the rejection.

“I come here every day,” he said to them. “Sometimes she knows me straight away, and we have a nice chat. Other days, she thinks I’m my brother Vinny, or my father. And then sometimes she’s like this, and she won’t even speak to me. It’s a cruel disease, Alzheimer’s.”

Victoria had resumed the position she’d had when they entered the room, staring at the wall near the TV screen, her expression tranquil.

Amy said, “It must be terribly frightening for her.”