She walked from room to room, wondering where on earth she should start on packaging up Eddie’s belongings and removing every trace of him from her flat and her life. It was hard to know where to begin exactly. She spotted the roll of black refuse bags that Pete had left in the hall. She’d tackle the bedroom first. She flung open the window and pulled the sheets off the bed, loaded them into the washing machine and made it up with fresh linen that she’d picked up a few years earlier on a trip to Belfast with Maya. She smiled as she ran her hand along the soft material; somehow, even if she’d never have admitted it before, these pristine bed linens had always seemed too good to use when Eddie slept here.

Then she turned her attention to the wardrobe and began to empty out every stitch of clothing that hung there belonging to Eddie. She folded each item before placing it in a refuse bag. Old habits die hard, obviously, and there was no point creasing things if she could help it. His collection of trainers took up three huge bags and the room felt as if it was somehow lighter just knowing that she had freed up all that space under her bed without them there.

She was about to run the vacuum under the bed when she spotted something just beneath the head board. Her first thought was, please let it not be mouse droppings. She wouldn’t be hugely surprised, since Eddie had a habit of lying in bed on his days off, glued to his iPad while mindlessly eating breakfast, lunch and dinner if he had the chance. She squinted now, trying to make out the hardly distinguishable shape. It was hard to know what it was, probably a huge ball of dust. She didn’t want to think about how long it was since she’d actually been able to give it a good cleaning under here. She grabbed her phone and shone the torch before reaching in and pulling out what looked like an old chain.

Rachel’s locket. Liv held it in her hands for a moment, hardly believing that she’d actually found it after all this time. She dropped back onto her knees, picking pieces of woolly dust from the chain and the clasp, rubbing off the tarnished silver with her sleeve. She traced her thumb along the intricate inlaid design.

It had belonged, once, to their grandmother. It must be, she reckoned, well over a hundred years old and it had the worn and smooth feel of having been touched often and treasured for many of those years. Liv remembered exactly when it had gone missing.