Step by step she tiptoed down towards the sound, the speed of the high notes now making her afraid as they raced across the keys, the contrast with the full pedal making their immediacy blur. She didn’t know how he was going to react when he saw her. From the door she could see his head was bowed. His back hunched down, his face too close to the keys.

She swallowed.

He stopped playing, abruptly, and stood up.

‘Do you want to get going?’ he said, as the piano lid slipped silently from his fingers over the keys.

She could see that the sleeping bag was folded neatly on the sofa. The cushions carefully arranged back into position.

He didn’t look her in the eye. His hands rested on the lid as he took a step to the side, away from where she was standing.

‘We don’t want to keep your Dr Quentin waiting.’

For a second she didn’t trust herself to speak.

Instead she nodded.

And just like that they were two strangers again, with nothing but an old moth-eaten piano standing between them.

Holly left her house furtively. At least, she imagined she was being furtive, but perhaps it was just that no one in her family was paying much attention to her at the moment. And that was as it should be. Rosie needed to be with her mum, and Kaz needed to find a way to speak to Rosie, and Daphne needed to support her daughter. Holly needed to stop feeling useless and get some answers. Starting with Freida. She didn’t want to speak to FullLife – and she was fairly sure they wouldn’t tell her anything even if she tried – but Freida was a different matter. Freida had disappeared and asked her not to follow and Holly had gone along with it. But not any more. Freida was alive out there, she was certain, and now she was going to start talking. Holly was going to see to that.