Now that the photo has been enlarged, I can see the similarities between the two of them. The high forehead. The long, straight nose and square jaw. His mother was what some might describe as a handsome woman. She’s not wearing any makeup and her hair is tied back off her face in a rather severe bun, but she clearly liked her jewelry, if that striking pendant round her neck is anything to go by.

I’ve left the two photos that Catherine gave me a few days ago propped up against the mirror. I really ought to get these framed, too. In fact, that’s what I’ll do now. I’ll walk to Blackheath Standard and go to that gift shop I passed a while back. I look at the photos once more and my eyes wander to the figure of Sheena Dawson as she chats with the woman in the next-door garden. I still can’t believe that Mum and Dad lived in Riley Road. Catherine said that her mum was almost back to her old self by the time Alice and I met, and then she got depressed again. I can’t see her face because her back is turned to the camera, but the woman she’s talking to is smiling broadly, which must mean they were sharing a joke about something.

That’s odd. I peer at the photo in my hand. The neighbor is wearing a pendant that’s almost identical to the one Ross’s mother is wearing. It’s a turquoise oblong that looks like it’s made out of glass or resin with swirling shapes inside, a little like a lava lamp. I look from one photo to the other. No. It isn’t almost identical. It is identical. What are the chances of that?

I study the neighbor’s face. She, too, has a long, straight nose and square jaw, and she’s the same coloring as Ross’s mother. My mouth goes dry. But Fiona Murray had been dead for almost twelve years when this photo was taken, and she lived in Aberdeen. It’s not her. Of course it isn’t. It’s obvious she’s a different woman. There is a likeness, though, and what with the pendant…

A strange and troubling thought enters my mind, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I go into the study and pull out Ross’s old photo album. He doesn’t have many pictures of his mother and the one in the frame is the clearest, from what I can remember, but it’s not his mother I’m looking for. It’s his aunt. Ross once told me that when she first took him in, he couldn’t bear to look at her, because she reminded him so much of his mother.