Keen to escape the stench of bleach, she steps out of the flat and into the hall. The house is eerily quiet. No clatter of pans or rising smells of onion and garlic or frying meat signifying evening meals, no hungry people rushing home. There is only the musty scent that pervades her flat, and the shifts and groans of the building. She pushes the light-switch. The light is dim. She looks up the stairs and the darkness thickens.

Beside her, the front door is ajar and the detail strikes a chord in her memory: she recalls a clipping she read, an interview with the landlord, Kenneth Quip, who had lived on the premises at the time she was discovered. In the interview, he had mentioned that the door was often left open by neglectful tenants. On that particular morning, when Baby Blue – Marina – was found, he was certain it had been ajar. How easy for a woman to come into the house, to place a bundle on the floor and disappear.

Where would she have left the baby?

Marina’s gaze falls on the alcove by the door. Now it’s a mess of abandoned boots and brollies. An old bike leans against the wall. But there is space. It’s a perfect place: safe and hidden. She crouches and touches the tiles with the flat of her hand. Was it here where she lay? She closes her eyes, searching for answers to her questions. Had she been sleeping, or had she cried for her mother? How long had she been there alone? She shivers, afraid of the answers, and stands slowly, looking about her, sensing a chill like the breath of a ghost. The timer stops and the light goes off.

Marina steps outside; it’s a relief to escape the disquiet inside her head, to warm her cold face in a patch of weak sunlight. What a miserable day to have arrived here. She flexes her fingers, fumbles for her gloves in her pocket and pulls them on. Standing there, she rakes over the information she has gleaned through the years. She pictures the plan she once drew of the tenants who had lived here in 1964, at least the ones who had come up in the newspapers: the basement flat, occupied by Victor Wallace; Flat 1, Kenneth Quip, the landlord; Flat 2, Leonard Crisp and Eileen Clarke, who were actors, apparently; Flat 3, Dorothy Light; Flat 4, Thomas Littleton; Flat 5, Natalia Kolinski.

Marina’s mind returns to the story of the pregnant woman spotted by a tenant. The tenant was Mrs Kolinski and, according to her, the woman had appeared several times in the months leading up to the abandonment. Who was she? Why hadn’t the police tracked her down?

The street lamp in front of the house flickers and comes on. Sickly yellow, it shines on the branches of the maple tree. The tree is spindly and tired-looking, giving the same impression of neglect as the house.