‘I did try to call her a few times but …’ Marianne breaks off and gives me a weak smile. ‘She didn’t answer. I don’t suppose she had time to keep up with old friends. She would have been very busy in her new job by then.’

I swallow. This is the moment when I should tell her.

‘I’d always known, really,’ Marianne goes on. ‘She was going to go on to bigger and better things. She was different. That’s what I was telling you at the start—’

‘Marianne?’ I interrupt. ‘I need to tell you something … Sarah? She sent me an email. Not recently, I don’t mean. It was nearly three years ago, just before I left the office.’

Marianne’s hand tightens on the birthday card she’s still holding. ‘An email? What did it say?’

‘She … she was just forwarding a document, from her personal account because the work email was down. And she wrote, stay in touch. But you’re right, I’m sorry, I always did keep myself to myself and so … Marianne, I never replied.’

Marianne stares at me. I swallow again, harder, ashamed of what I’ve told her. Afraid of what she might now say. In my awkwardness, I rush to move the conversation on.

‘So do you have any idea what might have happened? How she could have lost touch with her family, all of her friends?’

Marianne sets her glass down. It makes a sharp clack against the table. ‘I don’t know. To be honest, since you contacted me, I’ve mostly tried not to think about it. I think I’d prefer just to remember her my own way.’

I look at Marianne and her words confirm the sense I had a minute ago: you only saw what you wanted to see.

Or maybe, like me, Sarah only showed people what she wanted them to know.

Because this picture Marianne is painting … how little it fits with what I saw. That crumpled figure on the sofa, undiscovered for almost a year, those dead flies on the table, the radio playing. And her writing ‘stay in touch’ to a nobody like me.

But then I see another picture: the plates laid out on Sarah’s table. And she was pretty, really pretty, and there was something about her, wasn’t there? Even I can see that when I think of her. So whose version is right? The one I’ve been carrying, of someone troubled, isolated, struggling, alone, or Marianne’s image, of someone so vivacious, so popular, always ready to reach out for new friends? I feel myself fracturing between the two, unable to mesh the narratives together.

I get up. I already have my coat on and I think I need really to go. ‘Thank you for talking to me,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I can’t stay.’