‘The Public Trustee …’ The term is unfamiliar to me. But maybe it’s another avenue that could help. ‘Okay, well, I can do that, if you just let me know the details and what to do.’

Abayomi hesitates. ‘No, it’s all right, I’ll do it myself.’

I stare at him. ‘Why? I can manage.’

‘I’d rather handle it,’ he says, his voice uncharacteristically firm. He holds his hand out for Sarah’s file and I give it to him, a small, hard knot of unease in my stomach.

Come twelve, I tidy what is left on my desk and take my coat down from the hook by the door. Brixton Station is mere seconds from the office, and I’m on the Tube within minutes. As the train pulls through tunnel after tunnel, I try to rehearse what to do and what to say when I get there, but my mind keeps running into dead ends. I’ve really no idea how to hold this conversation. I don’t know what to say about the email Sarah sent me or the fact that I missed the annual check, and honestly if I think too much about what I’m doing, I’m in danger of getting off at the very next stop. In the office, Marianne was so efficient, knew everything about everything. And when I first came to London, I was so clueless. I’d never lived on my own before, didn’t really know how anything worked. It was Marianne who helped me, setting me straight in her business-like way. Direct debits, tax codes, school applications, the lot. And with the office work she assigned me too, she efficiently corrected my mistakes until I got it, until I could do everything right. I really respected her, I wanted to please her. And … something else too that I never would have said: how maternal it felt sometimes, the way she’d given me advice, guidance. Maybe it was that feeling, on top of everything, that made me hold myself back, worried that if I let myself open up, I wouldn’t be able to contain what I felt. So I kept my distance from her, like with everyone else then and everyone since. Thanked her for her help, was so politely grateful, letting her think I’d learned to be quite self-sufficient. Competent, professional, everything under control.

And now I’m going to her with this awful situation, and I don’t know what it will make her think. But at the same time I feel such a sense of responsibility: to do something, to find answers, to somehow make this right. My own memories of Sarah are so limited; they don’t shed any light at all. And although I don’t know what Marianne will be able to tell me – maybe a lot or maybe nothing – all I know is, at least I’ll have tried.