Charlie cautioned herself against getting her hopes up. Yet another connection; more unanswered questions. ‘In Martha’s novel, the man the heroine falls in love with is called Adam Sands—same initials as Aidan Seed.’

Jan was flicking through the file. ‘Nothing here, I’m afraid. Look.’ She handed Charlie several photographs. Seeing Aidan again in this context was almost shocking, though Charlie couldn’t have said why. In the pictures, he was wearing a suit and was slimmer than he’d been when Charlie had met him. He was smiling for the camera, but there was a strain to the smile, as if he wasn’t sure he could support its weight for much longer.

‘Would you say he was a happy person?’

‘Hard to tell,’ said Jan. ‘Sometimes he was jolly and chatty, life and soul of the party, but he could also be reserved, verging on morose. I had the impression life had been a struggle for him.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I was afraid you were going to ask me that.’ Jan smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t know. Let me think about it.’ She was silent for so long, Charlie started to wonder if she was waiting to be granted permission to think. ‘It was the way he spoke,’ she said finally. ‘He expressed his opinions and pursued his ambitions so . . . assertively. As if he thought it was the only way to be heard. I used to wonder about his family. I know his siblings are much older than he is. None of them came to the private view, which I thought was rather odd; not one single relative of his came anywhere near the exhibition in the month it was on. That’s almost unheard of.’

There was nothing remarkable about the photographs of Aidan Seed’s private view. His paintings, from what Charlie could make out, were of interiors containing people, usually more than one. Charlie found herself staring for longer than she needed to at a painting of a staircase, with a middle-aged woman turning, halfway up, to look down at a younger man—almost a boy—who was looking away from her.

‘Can you see how he uses almost stiflingly traditional painting techniques to create scenes that are aggressively contemporary? ’ Jan asked.

The picture was meticulously realistic; it could have been a photograph. Charlie was impressed, but she wouldn’t have wanted it on her wall. It would make her tense. The couple depicted—if they were a couple—had evidently had a row, or were in the middle of one. It wasn’t a peaceful painting. ‘What’s it called?’ she asked, wondering if the title would offer any clues. If she’d painted it, she’d have called it ‘These people are pissed off with each other because . . .’ and then the reason. What was the point of a picture that told a story if no one could work out what the story was?