‘You’d only have to get the pushchairs up over these two steps,’ said Matthew. ‘That won’t be hard.’

Elspeth nodded. She was looking at the high, elegant windows on either side of the front door. They would definitely need new curtains.

Matthew rang the bell and the door was answered by the solicitor’s assistant, a young woman, who led them into the hall. There was a brochure, setting out the floor plan and the details of each room. ‘Here are the particulars,’ said the young woman, handing them folders. ‘Please wander around – and let me know if there’s anything that needs explaining.’

The young woman went off to read a magazine in the kitchen, while Matthew and Elspeth made their way along the corridor that led to the garden end of the flat.

‘Particulars,’ whispered Matthew. ‘It’s a great word, isn’t it? Such a lovely old-fashioned ring to it. Just right for solicitors. Like the word corporation. Please send me particulars of your corpor ation.’

‘Corporation?’

‘Tummy,’ explained Matthew. ‘If somebody has a large stomach, it’s called a corporation in polite conversation. In Edinburgh. As in “He has a substantial corporation.” ’

Elspeth glanced down at her stomach. ‘I have an increasingly large corporation,’ she muttered. ‘And it’s going to get even larger.’

Matthew touched her arm lightly. ‘My darling! You’ll go back to normal size – after the baby … babies.’

‘I hope so.’

‘You will. Of course you will. People who have triplets don’t look massive for ever. That’s not the way it works.’

They reached the end of the corridor. Somewhere, a clock was ticking loudly – a sound that served to emphasise the overall silence of the flat.

‘It’s so quiet,’ said Matthew, peering into the room ahead of them. ‘Apart from that clock.’

They entered the drawing room, a large room that stretched out to a set of wall-high windows overlooking a terrace. For a few moments they stood quite still. Then Matthew turned to Elspeth and looked at her enquiringly. ‘Do you see yourself here?’ he asked.

She walked into the middle of the room. ‘It’s very elegant. Our stuff …’

He reassured her. ‘Our stuff will be all right,’ he said. ‘And if it isn’t, we can get some new stuff – or some new old stuff. There’s that place down in Leith that sells all that Georgian furniture. We could go there.’

Elspeth moved to the windows. The garden outside, which was surrounded by a high wall, had been carefully tended. It sloped down sharply, and at the end, beyond the top of the wall, the view was of the tops of the trees in Lord Moray’s Pleasure Garden beyond.

She gazed at the trees for a few moments, noticing how the wind was making them sway slightly. They were like the surface of a green sea, she thought; a green sea of gently moving leaves.