I went into the spare room, thinking he might have packed the clothes up, ready for me to take. I knew he shouldn’t have to do that, but maybe he’d thought he was being useful. My heart sank as I saw the bookcase was empty and there was no sign of any of my books. I must have had an inkling that something like this would happen as I’d photographed the shelves before I left, just in case. I could replace them, but new copies just wouldn’t be the same. I looked inside the suitcases that stood by the side of the wardrobe. They were empty. I checked under the bed. Nothing.

And then I felt a dull thud in my stomach; I knew what was going to happen now. I threw open the wardrobe doors and thrust my hand to the back of the top shelf, past the spare pillows and the woolen throw, trying to find the box. It wasn’t there.

My memory box was made of ruby red leather and bought for me when I was born by my aunt. I’d loved her and lost her to cancer years ago. My name was embossed on the box in gold lettering, and I’d used it all my life for the things that were precious to me. In it had been photos from my childhood, of my parents when they were young. A narrow silver bracelet that my first boyfriend had bought me; my first mobile phone, long defunct. Letters from my school friends when we all went off to different universities. My diaries in which I’d kept count of my menstrual cycle, so that I could work out my fertile periods. A tiny white velvet sleepsuit that I’d bought on the day we first decided to try for a baby. I used to hold it to me to imagine what it would be like to hold a child. And, tucked away in a little envelope, with nothing but the date written on it, was the scan photo of my baby, my only child, the one I’d lost when I was eighteen.

Panic surged through me. I pulled out the pillows and threw them onto the bed. I checked at the foot of the wardrobe but there was just his snorkeling gear and old running shoes.

I turned to leave the spare room, to check whether it was in Josh’s room, but Tom was standing in the doorway.

“Where is it?” I asked. “What have you done with it?”

CHAPTER 67

Ruby

For a second he looked as though he was going to carry on pretending he didn’t know what I was talking about, but then he said calmly, “Oh, it probably went out with the trash last week.”

“What?”