Harry was in the office, going through the bookings for the forthcoming weekend. His mother had accused him of being in a bad mood earlier and, although he had denied it, he was well aware he was grumpy. He hadn’t been able to see Steph for the last couple of days and it was pissing him off. God, how had she got under his skin so deeply and so quickly?

He needed to take some paperwork in to his mother to sign and attempted to push his bad mood aside, although that was easier said than done.

He knocked on the door to his mother’s private living room and went in but the room was empty. There was a strange smell hanging in the air. Harry took a couple of sniffs. It was a burnt sort of smell but plasticky at the same time. He wondered if it was something electrical but as he looked round the room for an obvious source he noticed a candle on the sideboard with molten black drips down the shaft. He went over and felt the wick between his fingers; it was still warm. It looked as though his mother had been melting something. How odd. He looked over the surface of the sideboard and, noticing a black drip on the edge of the wood, he allowed his gaze to trace its way to the floor. He bent down and picked up a small semi-melted square of plastic and, holding it between his finger and thumb, tried to work out what it was. There was a waste-paper bin to the side and Harry reached over for it.

In the bottom he could see more melted pieces of plastic. He fished them out. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this had once been a memory card of some description. He turned over a piece in his hand and immediately recognised the small fraction of handwriting that remained. The fancy and elaborate capital letter E written in the gold-ink pen his wife had loved so much was as clear as the day she had written it.

A noise behind him made him look round. Dominic was standing in the room, his hands in his pockets as he watched his brother. Harry stood up and held out his hand with the remains of the memory card. ‘This was Elizabeth’s.’

‘Hmm. Yes. It was.’ Dominic walked over to the drinks tray and poured himself a whisky.

A hundred different thoughts crashed their way around Harry’s mind, bumping and bouncing off each other so fast, he couldn’t pin a single one down to examine closely.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and opened them; standing straighter, he pushed his shoulders back and glared at Dominic. ‘What the fuck is going on? Why were you burning it? What was on it?’

‘It doesn’t really matter now.’