Clio’s desk was an old bureau. Ruth had been with her when she’d bought it from a charity shop four years ago, the two of them heaving it up three flights of stairs. It was hanging open, papers spilling from the various slots. There were two of the expected fungal coffee cups; Ruth moved them gently over to the other side of the room – she was in no state to cope with whatever was in the kitchen just now. She stuffed her big body awkwardly into the chair by the desk, trying not to knock anything. Clio’s computer wasn’t here, but the papers, daunting as they looked, actually began to calm her. Most of them were invoices or receipts, sent from some of the organizations Clio worked with. Official noteheads, with phone numbers and names of contacts – colleagues of a sort, people who might have known Clio not intimately, but enough to miss her. People who could provide a good sturdy base from which the news could be spread; people who might take some of this work away from Ruth. There was nothing resembling an address book. Of course there wasn’t. The idea of Clio maintaining an address book was ridiculous.

Who was supposed to do all this, Clio? The words sat around her head for a second, and Ruth realized she’d spoken them aloud, to the room, its mess, to the shed snakeskin. She carried on.

Who was going to come in here and clean up after you? Who was supposed to do this? It wasn’t mad, she realized, to talk out loud to someone dead. Not just now. Not when you were clearly suffering from the sort of shock that made you feel drunk and there were things that needed to be said. She wheeled round and addressed the empty easy chair, the now-folded blanket.

‘You know what? I haven’t cried yet. It’s been more than twelve hours since I found you and I haven’t cried yet. Oh, I’m sure I will at some point. There will be crying, because you’re my friend and you’re dead; because at some point it’ll hit me, this great big stupid waste you’ve committed. But I can’t cry because I’m so, so bloody angry at you. Why would you put all this on me? Why would you leave me here, in this room, with your mouldy fucking cups? And even if none of this occurred to you, you still chose my house to kill yourself in, didn’t you? You still knew it would be me that would have to find you.’

The waxy face, the silent scream.

‘Are you still here? Are you, you … fucking … cow?’

The room, its emptiness, made her feel foolish, and she wished she could take the last words back even though no one had heard them.