The woman I recognized at first – the one who passed me and the bailiffs on her way out to work – shakes her head in reply to my question. ‘We just know she used to live on our stairwell. I saw her once or twice when she first moved in, but I didn’t know her. Seems no one did. We’re only here to pay our respects.’

I knock away a further tear that has crept into my eye. ‘It’s so awful to think she didn’t have any friends, any family. How can that happen? It just doesn’t seem right.’

The third woman in the group pulls her coat more tightly around her and I glimpse the cross that hangs at her neck. ‘The police told us she had deleted all the numbers from her phone. That, or she didn’t have any in there to begin with.’

‘She deleted her numbers?’ But I think of what I saw in the flat: the table set for guests. It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.

The little group are stepping away now, heading back outside. Who am I to them? Just some white woman asking stupid questions and making everybody feel worse. They have done their Christian duty, laid a wreath and paid their respects. They aren’t friends or family of the dead girl. The truth is, it’s really nothing to do with them. But it feels so wrong to just let them leave, to think of all of us leaving, just going back to our lives. The words come out before I can stop them, as though I can’t hold anything inside any more.

‘The worst part …’ I blurt out from the arch of the church doorway. ‘The worst part is that they had to ID her from her teeth.’

Outside, the group of four slows then comes to a halt. The woman I once met coming down the stairs turns around. Her face has softened, and I realize I desperately want her to say something comforting, something to alleviate the horror I feel. Instead, I’m not at all prepared for what comes next.

‘Oh yes.’ She raises a hand to her mouth. ‘She had that gap, didn’t she? I suppose it would have been quite distinctive.’

She mimics in the air – drawing a space between two front teeth. And I feel as though I’ve flipped right out of myself.

The tenant, her age, her email. My imagination that wasn’t imagination at all. Suddenly everything clashes together. Suddenly I know, I know, I know. I cannot believe I didn’t connect it before. How, how could I not have realized?