As he pushed open the door to the cafe a bell jangled, too loud and bright. And then he saw her. The image of Avigail, as she was, walking towards him, taking his hand, but speaking in a softer voice, and her hair shorter, spikier, and there was more pain in her eyes. Suddenly he wanted to help her. It didn’t occur to him to be careful.

Eva steered him over to the table, sat down herself and smiled.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I wish I’d called sooner. I didn’t realise you’d known my mother well.’

‘Yes, well. Not really … A long time ago.’

He seemed anxious, or perhaps unsure of what to say. He had a nervous habit of pushing his glasses higher up on his nose, from where they slipped a few millimetres lower every few seconds, and although he was balding the hair that he did have needed a trim. He looked less like a FullLife employee than an academic, in his knitted brown jumper with a white zigzag pattern across the chest.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

Eva couldn’t lie, not about this. But she paused, and a waitress arrived to take his order. He asked for coffee, then added on a superfood salad.

‘My wife’s idea,’ he smiled. ‘I’ve been … run down. Too busy to eat properly.’

Eva frowned. ‘What is it you do?’

‘Oh, I thought you knew. I thought …’ His glasses were pushed up again. ‘Sorry, I’m the director of scientific research, round the corner.’

‘That sounds important.’

He sighed but said no more.

If he hadn’t known her mother, if she hadn’t got his name from her address book, Eva would have assumed this man had no idea who she was or what she’d been doing for the last twenty-five years. Perhaps they were so confident now, up in their glass tower, it never occurred to them that people might be working against them. But that made it sound too dramatic. Of course, she never had been any kind of threat.

‘I hope …’

She looked up at him, surprised for some reason that he was speaking again.

‘I hope it was peaceful, as far as these things can be.’

Suddenly, for no reason she could put her finger on, she wondered if this was all an act. If they had heard the phone call, given him instructions on what to say, how to play the meeting so as to get rid of her, get her mind firmly away from FullLife and onto more painful subjects. Were they expecting something?

‘Not particularly,’ she said, aware of how her tone had changed.

He ran his hand through his thinning hair.

‘How exactly did you know my mother?’