‘Did he kill Martha Wyers? Did you? Both of you together?’ The painting is still imprinted on my mind. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. No one would paint someone dead like that, in such lurid detail, unless they relished the death in some way, wanted to savour it. The picture had an atmosphere of triumph about it; I don’t think I can have imagined that. I want to see it again, but I’m scared to go charging upstairs like I did before, scared that Mary wouldn’t be here when I came back down. I’m not letting her out of my sight, not until she’s answered my questions.

‘Martha killed Martha,’ she says, lighting a cigarette. ‘She hanged herself. I suppose you think I’m sick, painting her like that.’

I don’t acknowledge the question. She’s getting nothing from me until she gives me something back.

‘People deal with grief in different ways.’ Her voice hardens, as if it angers her to find herself caught up in justifications. ‘When you lose everything that matters to you, you want something to show for it.’

‘You loved Martha.’

‘Very much. At the same time, nowhere near enough.’

‘You think you could have saved her?’

‘Could and should.’

‘What happened?’ I ask, leaning forward in my chair. I don’t know what time it is, but it’s late. Dark outside. Mary hasn’t closed the curtains. Every now and then she looks out at the lamplit street beyond the window, her sharp eyes scouring the night. For Aidan?

‘This man,’ she says, waving my letter at me. ‘Was there anyone before him? Men, boys? Girls?’ She smiles.

How many more questions will she make me answer before she answers mine? ‘At first I only dated good Christian boys,’ I say. ‘The sons of my parents’ friends.’

‘I’m surprised they let you date anyone,’ says Mary.

‘Only once I was sixteen, and only trips to public places like the cinema. When I left home and they couldn’t keep tabs on me as easily, I went for anybody who was nothing like the people I’d known through church. The further removed from that world, the better. I went for the sort of men who would have reduced the church boys to quivering wrecks.’

‘That sounds dangerous.’

‘Not really. I didn’t respect or care about any of them. I just wanted to prove I could sleep around and the world wouldn’t fall apart. And it didn’t. The first man I really felt anything for was . . . Him.’

‘What about Aidan Seed?’

‘What about him?’

‘You love him.’

‘Yes.’

Mary smiles at my hesitation. ‘A man who tells you he’s killed someone who you know is alive: me. A man who fucks with your brain so badly that it drives you half insane.’

I hate this.

‘Don’t you see the pattern?’