Nick grabbed a bottle of beer and started circulating among the guests, most of whom he’d known for years. They were mostly in their sixties, politically committed Baby Boomers horrified by Brexit and global warming who tended to live in more select neighbourhoods themselves but heaped praise on Caro and April for choosing – as if it had been a choice – to settle somewhere ‘authentic’. Teaching in the private sector, as Nick did, meant he always had to endure a certain amount of sarcasm. But at least he taught art, which somehow excused a lot.

Most people had taken their drinks out into the garden, where the fitful sunshine made it just warm enough to stand around. Glancing back at the house while he listened smilingly to several old friends of his mother as they chatted about themselves and their children, he saw April tasting a dish that was simmering away in the kitchen. She was with Nan, a younger woman Nick had already been fleetingly introduced to. Something in their body language – he couldn’t have said exactly what – made him think they could be more than just friends. He was surprised to realize he was neither horrified nor delighted by the thought. April had every right to seek happiness wherever she could find it. But it was another milestone measuring the passage of time since Caro’s death. And it was a sobering one in its way.

The afternoon went well. The wine flowed and the world was set to rights in bittersweet debates that somehow failed to identify the secret foe who’d frustrated their high hopes for a better future. They were good people. They thought good things. And Nick liked them, most of all because they brought him as close to his mother, who thought and spoke and believed as they did, as he was ever going to get now she was gone.

When the party broke up, April encouraged Nick to linger. Over coffee and brandy, she soon began to talk about Caro and Nick saw a chance to ask about Martin Caldwell.

‘Do you remember exactly when you first met Caro?’

‘You must have asked me that before, Nicky. What did I say?’

He smiled. ‘I’m not sure.’

And she smiled too. ‘Probably because I’m not sure either. But meet we did, I’m glad to say.’

‘Before you lived in the same house?’

‘Definitely. One of the reasons I moved in there was to be close to Caro and persuade her she wanted to be close to me.’

‘I was speaking to Martin Caldwell after the funeral. He lived there too, didn’t he?’

‘Marty? Yeah. What did he tell you?’ Was there something more than natural curiosity to the question? Nick wasn’t sure. April wasn’t always the open book she claimed to be.

‘He didn’t say much about it.’