But Prisha was dead. It was reported on her Facebook page. She’d died in a car crash in Lincolnshire, on the way to collect a grandfather clock. If photos did lie, I’d never learn the truth, because nobody except Gina, Evan’s drunken daughter back in Hendon, had spoken ill of the dead. More to the point, a death triggers multiple reactions, spawned by the multiple personalities of the person who has passed away. I thought of Trev from Finchley, posed outside his camper van with his arm around his wife. How long had he been double-crossing her, sleeping with a woman half her age? Half my age? For a moment, on the dead Vronny’s behalf, I actually felt jealous of Trev’s mistress, so briefly glimpsed in the Kilburn High Road.

There were many, many postings on Facebook of Andy and Prisha. I became so intimate with their lives that I forgot why I was doing this. Prisha was a large—very large—woman who frequently wore a fuchsia-pink trouser suit that did her no favours. She had the steely look of a born businesswoman. Her partner, Andy, was a stocky, fleshy man who enjoyed his drink; in the majority of the photos he was holding a pint. He was a Spurs supporter and, not surprisingly, a dog lover. In fact, with his groomed and shapely white beard he resembled one of his own Schnauzers. I liked the look of his dogs—a breed unfamiliar to me—and I liked the look of him. Third time lucky, I thought. If anyone questioned me, I’d say I’d met Andy and Prisha when I bought one of their puppies.

I know what you’re thinking. That I was a psychopath. A sociopath. Whatever. That I was seriously deranged if I carried on like this. Did I really think I could hit on a man at his own wife’s funeral and get away with it? That we would both, as it were, hit it off? The whole thing was getting beyond a joke. And now I should stop, before anyone got hurt.

I nearly missed the funeral. This was happening more and more often nowadays. Time seemed to be slipping its leash. I’d write a shopping list, put on my coat, and find it was six o’clock and I was still sitting in the kitchen. I’d come downstairs in the morning, having forgotten when I’d gone to bed, and find the lights still blazing.

That particular day, in late November, I was already dressed and ready. I sat on my bed, the blower heater humming. It was freezing outside and the boiler was still broken. Underneath the black dress I wore a vest I’d found at the back of my cupboard. I hadn’t worn it for years, not since Azra and I had gone ice-skating.