‘Different because she hated him,’ says Mary crossly, as if I’m lagging behind. ‘She decided to destroy herself, and him, with one gesture: her suicide. Martha was a fan of the grand gesture. She invited Aidan here on the pretext of wanting to commission a picture from him. He said no at first—he worked from inspiration, didn’t do commissions, all the predictable shit she knew he’d come out with. She put a stop to it by promising him fifty grand. The noble artist was willing to take a bribe, it turned out, as long as the bribe was big enough. Martha sent him a cheque for fifty grand the next day, along with directions to this place—her little writing hideaway.’

I can’t disguise my shock. ‘Fifty grand? She had access to that kind of money?’

‘You haven’t got a clue, have you? For people like me and Martha—for your average Villiers girl—fifty grand isn’t “that kind of money”. It’s about the equivalent of what, I don’t know, maybe five hundred pounds would be to you.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound quite as patronising as it did.’

‘I can guess the rest,’ I say, wanting it to be over. ‘He came here, and she hanged herself in front of him.’

‘She had it all set up. She was standing on a table. She’d left the cottage’s front door open, put music on . . .’

‘ “Survivor,” ’ I murmur.

‘Right. So that he’d know she was in, so that he’d walk in and look for her. He found her in the dining room, on the table with a rope round her neck, attached to the light fitting. He didn’t say anything when he saw her like that, and she said only one thing to him: “You can keep the fifty grand. I won’t be needing it.” And then she jumped.’ Both of us shift suddenly as Mary says the last word, conscious of how it would feel to fall through the air, your fall broken only by a sharp jerk that snaps your neck.

‘Why were you there?’ I ask, trying to banish the creeping hollow sensation Mary’s story has left me with.

‘Martha and I were inseparable,’ she says, her eyes and voice flat.

‘Until she met Aidan?’

‘Even after that.’

‘So . . .’ I struggle to pin down what’s niggling at me. Was Mary in the room when Martha put the rope round her neck? Did she egg her on? Did she stand by and watch, saying nothing. Aidan and Mary, the two people closest to Martha, both artists. ‘Did Aidan know you were a painter too?’ I ask.

‘I wasn’t. Before Martha died, I’d never painted anything in my life, apart from the bowls of fruit people put in front of me at school.’