Chloe wishes there was a script inside her coat. But instead it’s Maureen who grabs her, tucking her arm inside her elbow. She pats the top of Chloe’s hand and they walk on. Arm in arm. Like mother and daughter for all anyone else would see. But there is no one to bear witness, for the road is completely deserted.

‘Listen to me,’ Maureen says, ‘going on like this to you. I’m sorry, Chloe, I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t, it’s just . . .’

Chloe looks at her, she sees the way Maureen’s eyes flicker across her face.

‘What?’ Chloe says. ‘What is it?’

Maureen looks away, back down at the road. When she next speaks it’s quieter, as if Maureen is daring herself to say the words.

‘And then you turned up wanting that room. I remember when you said how old you were – twenty-nine, exactly the same age as Angie would have . . .’

Now it’s Chloe’s turn to look down at the tarmac. There’s a lane turning right beside a disused signal box, where wild flowers run up to the road.

‘Shall we go this way?’ Chloe says, not because she wants to change the subject – far from it – but because she isn’t sure how to respond. Or rather, she doesn’t want her response to be too eager, too obvious. She almost feels exposed out here on these open fen roads.

Maureen nods.

The two women walk for a little while and as they do Maureen points out snipe dipping their long beaks into the dykes that run alongside them, and lapwings pecking at fields sown with cereal. Chloe listens – half listens. She knows when she needs to nod, but she doesn’t ask a single question about the flora and fauna because she so desperately wants Maureen to return to the same subject. She wants to hear her talk more about Angie.

‘Do you have any other family?’ Maureen says. ‘I’ve probably asked you before.’

Chloe shakes her head. ‘Just Nan,’ she says.

‘You have another grandmother still alive?’

Chloe looks back at her, then feels her cheeks sting with blood. She looks away. How had she slipped up like that?

‘Oh, sorry. I forgot for a second, I . . .’

Maureen puts her hand on Chloe’s.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘It’s so easily done, isn’t it? When you miss them so much, it feels like they’re still here. I know for a long time after Angie . . . well, sometimes I even let myself pretend she was just at school. Anything to ease the pain, although I know some people thought I was mad.’

Chloe is grateful that her slip-up has brought them back to Angie. Now she just needs to keep her here.

‘The day . . . the day Angie went . . . where were you?’ Chloe asks.

‘Me?’ Maureen says.

Chloe nods.