‘I put it back on again every morning. I don’t think it’s bad luck.’ Charlie felt herself tense up. ‘Marrying someone who refuses to have sex with you, who’s never said he loves you—that’s my idea of bad luck.’

Jan looked confused. ‘No one would do that,’ she said.

‘How well do you remember Aidan’s paintings from this exhibition? ’

‘Better than I remember most shows. Why?’

‘Were any of them violent? Women getting killed, that sort of thing?’

Jan recoiled. ‘No. Nothing like that.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely. Aidan’s work wasn’t about violence. It was about awkward atmospheres between people, failures of communication. ’

‘I don’t suppose you remember who bought what?’ Charlie had to see that picture. Quickly. She crossed her fingers against it being in Auckland or Sri Lanka, the prized possession of a foreign collector who’d happened to be in London at the time of Aidan Seed’s exhibition.

‘I don’t remember,’ said Jan. ‘But I don’t need to. The sales list’ll be in the file. It wasn’t the usual suspects, though. Only three of the pictures sold at the private view, but the next day I had collectors coming in and ringing up, wanting to buy Aidan’s work sight unseen. I didn’t really believe in the power of word of mouth before Aidan. The entire show sold out in three days, and a lot of the buyers were clamouring for more—they wanted to know how quickly he could produce new work, and wanted first refusal as soon as he did. It was absolutely extraordinary.’ Jan’s eyes shone. Charlie suspected the exhibition had been the high point of her career as well as Aidan Seed’s. She could feel her heart beating in the roof of her mouth. The information she wanted was in a file right in front of her. Any second now, she’d have her hands on it.

Jan pulled out two sheets of A4 paper, stapled together. Charlie waited for her to look, to notice the title of number 18, but she didn’t. She held out the list for Charlie to take.

The first thing that leaped out was the name Wyers. A Mrs Cecily Wyers had bought number 4: Routine Bites Hard. Something snagged in Charlie’s brain. Where had she heard that title before? The combination of those three words in that order was very familiar, but Charlie couldn’t put her finger on why. She saw Ruth Bussey’s face clearly in her mind. Was it something to do with Ruth?

From that unanswerable question, Charlie moved on to another: was Cecily Wyers a relative of Martha’s? Could the two women who’d argued about whether or not to buy a painting have been Martha and her mother? Had Martha said in front of Jan Garner that Aidan’s paintings had a rotten soul, and been admonished for it?