Marina looks at her curiously. Eva is more talkative than she had expected from Ron’s description.

‘It sounds upsetting,’ she says, and waits for a few moments before leading Eva back to the abandoned baby, asking her if she recalls anything at all about the day they found her.

Eva frowns and shakes her head slowly. ‘I know the story because everybody did and I expect I listened to people gossiping, but as you say, all that came later.’

Marina is quiet, sensing that Eva has more to say.

‘What is strange, though . . .’ She stops. She is staring across the room at the bookcase. Marina follows her gaze. There’s a rag doll propped on a shelf.

‘Yes?’

She shakes her head. ‘Nothing.’

Marina lets go of her disappointment. Then, in return for Eva’s honesty, she offers a personal detail about herself. She tells her that one reason she is interested in the case is that she was adopted.

Eva’s eyes widen. ‘Adopted?’

Marina nods. ‘I suppose that’s why I’ve always been interested in people’s origins. It’s a bit of an obsession. Recently I’ve been editing the memoirs of a Jewish lady who had to leave her parents behind in Poland. It’s an awful story.’ She stops talking, aware there is nothing she can say to Eva because she already knows.

There is a silence. Then Eva throws up her hands. ‘I’m sorry! I forgot your tea.’

She hurries across to the tray, pours rapidly and hands Marina a cup and saucer and a pastry. Eva’s hand shakes, the tea spills into the saucer, and she apologises again. Marina tells her not to worry, but she is intrigued: she senses a complexity about Eva which she would like to understand.

Instead of sitting down, Eva paces the room. She stops in front of the rag doll on the shelf. ‘Have you ever wondered,’ she says, ‘how reliable your memories actually are?’

‘Definitely. Memory is peculiar.’

‘Do you think we make up things?’ Eva takes the doll and holds it to her face. ‘Do you think we piece together bits of information that other people give us and form stories to suit ourselves?’

Marina shifts in her seat. She can sense a change in Eva, but she isn’t sure what it means.

‘Take this doll, for example. I remember that somebody gave it to me, but I can’t remember who. Yet it feels significant for some reason.’

‘Was it your mother?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘I had a rag doll like that once upon a time. They must have been all the rage when we were girls. I called mine Jemima. How about you?’

Eva tilts her head. ‘Sarah.’ Her eyes light up. ‘That’s just come back to me. I’m sure I didn’t know that five minutes ago.’