Matty had said no to offers of help in clearing out the flat. It would be a punishment of sorts, touching all of Rosa’s things, packing her life away. The few videos – Films of the Fabulous Forties and the Cary Grant Collection. The clothes bought from Italian markets with their tissue paper covers. The stacks of fashion magazines. Her lipsticks, the scooped ends at different lengths. Matty kept Rosa’s wedding ring and a silver necklace that Joe had given Rosa, a droplet with a waxy pearl in it, and sent the rest of the jewellery to Rimini.

Photo albums had been stored in the attic. There were a few childhood portraits, Rosa as a young teenager in a checked swimsuit and black-framed sunglasses, already posing. Wedding photos in front of the door of the church, Joe with a wide collar and Rosa in stiff silk and a white headband. Nonno with his fat, quiet grin and brown suit. Old cards were loose in the box, soft at the edges. Birthday cards, her twenty-first and thirtieth. Matty’s christening. And, falling out of a pink card saying New Baby, was a letter, as crinkled as lace.

Rosa –

I’m sorry I did it this way. It just got too much. I had to get off for a bit, and maybe the space will do you good too. I can’t be with you anymore, and you know all the reasons why. I’ll not be a victim. Give this to Matty. I’ll be in touch soon.

Joe

For two hours, Matty had sat back against the eaves, staring at the yellow insulation foam opposite. Punched into silence.

It was something unimaginable.

The note had clearly been crumpled up before being smoothed out again and placed in the card. It curled in Matty’s palms, hardly real. Yet it was his writing – almost as alarming as hearing him speak, to see the right-leaning slant, the big looping ‘I ’.

Eventually, Matty had slid down and lain on the floor of the attic, breathing in the dust, coming down hours later to find that it was dawn.

Joe. A note that could only have been written after he went missing.

After he left.

Matty had gone to the Heath, dead early. Walked. On Parliament Hill, the note had come out again, held tightly so it wouldn’t blow away. His words – you could hear him saying them. Picture him writing it, his forehead leaning on his hand. Looking up at a window. Smoking.

There was no date, but surely he couldn’t have sent it that long after he’d gone. Could he? There’d been no envelope.

Give this to Matty.