But of course, that was wrong. These people knew. The people she had chosen to know. Had Holly done anything so bad, for her best friend to cut her out of her life, so completely? Bea said Freida had told her stories. Holly wasn’t sure she wanted to know what they were.

‘She did leave some things for you,’ he said. ‘Well, for anyone who came, I think.’

Holly breathed in, then out.

‘So I guess they’re for you.’

He was looking at her, not at those other two. Piotr and Eva had been minding their own business. They’d said early on that they had never even met Freida. Piotr had said that. It was good of him. Otherwise they could have been the ones holding this file, and sitting in front of this computer screen. Perhaps, in some way, she wished they were.

‘I recorded the video for her,’ Declan said. ‘She asked me to. And she asked me to keep it here until someone came looking. She didn’t say who that would be.’

Then he leaned over Holly’s shoulder and selected the final recorded message that Freida had left behind.

Freida’s face filled the screen, close up and distorted, a massive nose taking up the bulk of the picture. Her eyes – which appeared very small in comparison to the nose – seemed to be searching left and right, and then what was presumably a hand waved in front of the camera and blocked everything.

‘Oh, good heavens!’ said Holly as Eva stifled a laugh. She and Piotr had gathered round behind her, to watch.

‘Where’s the camera?’ a voice, now familiar in the way it seemed to boom from electronic devices, asked the room. ‘Hello? hello? Is this thing working?’

Declan’s voice could be heard, off camera, saying it was right in front of her face.

‘Not on top of it,’ he said. ‘There, there.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Freida. ‘Why didn’t you just say so?’

At last, she sat back and realised there was a small square showing her what was being recorded.

‘That’s me there, is it?’ she said.

Off camera, Declan replied that it was.

‘Right. Edit that first bit out for me, will you?’

‘I can start the recording again?’

‘No, no, don’t do that. We’re here now, let’s get on with it. Just edit it out later.’

Holly glanced at Declan, who was standing beside her, watching the video like it was a home recording of a happy family holiday. Smiling, he caught her eye and shrugged to tell her he had no idea how to edit a video.