From searching online she found some chat rooms full of the crazy accusations she’d always tried to distance herself from – FullLife were experimenting on babies in the pouches; babies were disappearing; babies were being replaced with something non-human. It all sounded a bit like alien abductions. Of course none of it was true. She had checked, she’d even met up with a few of the most vocal users, but all they had were urban legends and sci-fi plots. FullLife never even got involved. They didn’t need to – no one believed any of it anyway, and there were plenty of people willing to leap to FullLife’s defence in the discussion groups. You could find anything online, if you looked for long enough, but rarely anything of use.

She did find some information in her mum’s notes, though she wasn’t sure how much help that would be either. There were folders full of letters of support, which must have been important to her mum, but Eva couldn’t bring herself to read them. There were newspaper cuttings from when she actually managed to get some good press, back when papers were still being bought and sold. Articles raising questions that no one seemed to want to raise, about the clinical trial periods, care homes, pouch abuse, potential long-term effects on human fertility. They were from decades ago. And there was an address book. That’s what Eva had been hoping to find. Her mum had known a lot of people, and some of them, surely, would talk to her.

As she flicked through the pages and read the names, she could imagine herself back there, watching as a child in awe of her mum who had no end of phone calls and letters – she’d had so many friends. The house was full of them, as well as the office. Her mum had loved it when people came to stay. They didn’t have to agree with her – in fact she’d relished the chance to stay up late and drink and argue, Eva listening, usually, from her bedroom upstairs, wishing she were old enough to join in.