‘I’ve been trying, believe me,’ Tomasz replied. ‘Spent the last ten years trying to get Dad to sort it out. Even offered to organise and pay for the work myself but the old man wouldn’t hear of it. Said the place was fine.’ He raised his hand in a baffled gesture. ‘Everyone can see it’s been neglected for years. With Dad, unfortunately, I think it was pride.’ He focused his gaze on me. ‘But it’s created an impasse as Mum seems to feel some misguided sense of loyalty now that Dad’s dead, and she won’t agree to work being done either. I’ve offered to put her up in one of my properties while the work is done but she won’t hear of it. I’ve run out of ideas.’

‘What’s your line of business?’ I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t followed his parents into running the newsagent’s. He’d always seemed ambitious.

‘I own some property and I have a bar.’

‘Around here?’

‘A bit further towards Shoreditch.’ He gestured behind him with his thumb.

Dan was already on his phone. He seemed to have taken a dislike to Rosa’s son.

‘Do you live up there too?’ I asked.

‘Yes. When my sister and I left home, she moved out to Newham and I stayed in Tower Hamlets. She had a family and when Dad got sick, it was easier for me to keep an eye on Mum when I was up the road.’

‘Are you in touch with your sister much?’ She’d been a few years younger than me I’d never got to know her.

‘Agnieszka? Oh, yes. We both do what we can to help Mum. Especially now Dad’s not around.’ He paused, as though he was deciding what to say. ‘It isn’t easy. I don’t think they make them like her anymore.’ He gave a small, frustrated laugh. ‘Perhaps it’s a generational thing: being born at the end of the war and emigrating . . . ? It must have been hard. She’s fiercely independent and not good at asking for help. The old man was extremely proud. He didn’t like help either.’ His smile creased the corners of his mouth, and the obvious affection made his thoughtful brown eyes shine.

His comments reminded me of my own mother, and I wondered how she would have coped, slogging away in a shop, organising orders and deliveries, and doing business accounts at the age of seventy-five, after losing her husband months earlier.