And now she was gone. It was like her death had just happened for him. How awful, the way we can push things out of our minds. So easy not to face something unless it is standing in front of you. And while he was sitting on the floor, thinking about death, Eva was searching through cupboards, and he saw flashes of colour, caught glimpses of fabrics that were so reminiscent of Avigail it felt like she was there. I always liked you, he wanted to say. I liked you. Does that help, at all?

Eva handed him an old calendar, some notes for essays that had never been written. He read them then carefully added them to the right pile. He didn’t interrupt her with suggestions about what to do next. She showed him Avigail’s descriptions of the care homes she’d visited – details of their funding, too, from private investors whose money had long since dried up to the more liberal pro-life groups while their movement was splitting down the spine. After the pouch was invented no one had known which way they would go. After all, if what you really cared about was the life of every foetus, then the pouch gave you a way to save every one of them. But some believed that women were supposed to give birth, that women only existed to give birth … Thankfully society had turned away from that. The result was the rapid acceptance of the pouch, in the UK at least. And as for the care homes … He knew they were struggling.

He read it all in silence, then looked up at her.

‘This one,’ she said, glancing away from him as she took the papers back and added them to her file. ‘That was where I lived. But it’s not going to help us today.’

He just nodded and left her the space to talk if and when she wanted to. Twice today, he had managed silent support. And it must have helped – why else would Kaz have talked to him, or Eva let him stay?

‘More letters,’ she said. ‘Just read some of these.’

And there were loads of them, the letters, some genuine, some offering help, some that sounded like they’d been written by deranged fans. Then there was one, handwritten on yellowing paper, and Piotr wasn’t sure but he thought it was different to the rest; it hadn’t even been signed. ‘Have you seen this one?’

She looked over her shoulder and waved her arm impatiently. ‘Mum had friends all over the place,’ she said. ‘She was always going off somewhere. Just put it on the pile with the others.’ Then she stopped, stood still, and Piotr knew she’d found something else. Slowly, she sat down next to him.

‘Mum’s old photographs,’ she said.