The horror and the loneliness when Saffie disappeared was like losing a limb that went on twitching with the loss of the other half of me.

I feel it, even now.

FIVE

Fleur woke early on the day of her flight to Singapore. She never drew her curtains and she saw it was the most beautiful day. The leaves of the tree outside were motionless. The day seemed to be holding its breath. A blackbird sang clear into the morning against the growl of cars in the distance as the city woke up. It felt like the first day of spring.

Fleur lay looking round her room, where the sun slanted across the floor highlighting the dust motes which hung and floated in the air. She felt a strange sad-happiness, when to be alive was almost enough in the moment of a bird singing; in the moment of sunlight on your hands; in the small awareness of yourself in a new day.

Since Fergus died she had learnt to be still and treasure these mornings, waking alone and listening, really listening, both to the sounds of a world waking up and to herself. The first moments of the day could reveal feelings she could not articulate or write down, but would sometimes attempt to capture in paint.

A lack of professional technique – for Fleur thought of herself as an apprentice – could not hide the intensity behind her paintings. A fleeting spiritual second could transform a simple painting into a canvas that people stood in front of and gazed at, captivated by the power with which Fleur captured the enormity of loss alongside the budding awareness of something beyond herself that went on moving and growing within her.

The loss of a child ended innocence. To be pre-deceased by your child was the worst that could happen to a parent. It took a lifetime of walking towards a hope of understanding to realise that there was nothing to understand. Sense could never be made of a random wicked and meaningless act. This was the bleak knowledge you carried all your life like a second self, buried, but always with you.

Fleur, triggered by the sudden loss of Fergus, found that she could suddenly translate this knowledge into colour and texture and turn it into something people could relate to. Something they felt in the core of themselves, in the pit of their stomachs, in the ache of their throats as they stood staring at her large, brightly coloured landscapes full of heat and bustle. Their eyes drawn to the one small object or person within the picture that stood quite separate and alone.

Fleur did not know from where her inspiration came. Only that it came from some unexplored source and she painted fast and concentrated, to the exclusion of all else, in the silent nights and into the pale, cold dawn of another day.

As she lay staring at the tree outside her window, she felt as if she had already left this small terraced house and begun her journey of discovery to her daughter and to Hundertwasser’s architecture, all without corners, all without angles, all part of the earth and its constant cycle of rebirth. She was aware of why she was drawn to his philosophy and architecture; it was connected indivisibly to her need for reparation with her daughter.