Gran’s head is bent. She’s lost the plumpness to her face, the skin now hanging loose around her jowls, her cheekbones prominent. Her snow-white hair – it once used to be a beautiful coppery red, from a bottle Gran always claimed – is fluffy, the texture of cotton wool. She’s pushing the pieces of a jigsaw around the table and, for a moment, it takes me back to when I was a kid and we’d sit together in companionable silence in the evenings, as the sun went down, trying to work out the best way to construct the puzzle.

I stand in the doorway for a few minutes, just watching. The room is too warm and smells musty, like roast dinners and over-boiled veg. The carpet is the kind you’d find in an old-fashioned seaside guesthouse, all red and gold swirls.

‘Rose is having a good day,’ says a voice from behind me. It’s Millie, one of the carers, and my favourite. Millie is a few years younger than me with the kindest face and widest smile I’ve ever seen. She has short spiky black hair and piercings halfway up both ears.

‘Oh, I’m so pleased. I’ve some news for her.’

Millie raises an eyebrow. ‘Ooh. Good, I hope?’

I touch my stomach self-consciously and nod. I don’t want to think of the other thing. The bad news. The bodies.

Millie squeezes my shoulder encouragingly, then moves on to help an elderly man, who’s trying to get out of his chair. I make my way to the end of the room, weaving past some of the other residents clustered around the television and the old man reading a newspaper upside down in the corner, until I reach Gran.

She looks up as I approach and, for a moment, confusion flits across her features and I have to swallow my disappointment. She doesn’t recognize me. Today is not a good day after all.

I slide into the chair opposite. It has such a high back that I feel like I’m sitting on a throne. ‘Hi, Granny. It’s me, Saffy.’

Gran doesn’t speak for a few seconds, continuing to move around the pieces of the jigsaw even though she hasn’t started making the picture. The box is propped up at the end of the table. A black Labrador puppy on the front surrounded by flowers. ‘Let’s find the edges first,’ she always used to say, her weathered hands, the result of many hours’ gardening, nimbly seeking out the right pieces. But now there is no method, Gran instead just moving the pieces around aimlessly, her fingers gnarled and wrinkly.