She looks behind her, backing up a few steps and leaning over the top of the stairs. She hears Maureen say something to Patrick about the programme they’re watching, him grunt a reply, then Chloe looks back at their bedroom door. She tiptoes towards it, puts her palm on the handle, feels it turn and release before she can stop herself. Inside the bedroom, cool air hits her. One of the windows in the bay is open and deep salmon-pink curtains and nets billow at it, beckoning her inside. She obeys them and steps through the boundary, closing the door behind her. She stands there, her heart banging against the towel she holds in place with her hand. The room is painted white, but the pink of the curtains bleeds colour into the walls. Now she’s in here, the curtains are still as if they’d never invited her in in the first place. She looks back at the door, wondering why she hadn’t left it open. But then she’d only ever known this door closed, and it would raise suspicions if someone came upstairs and saw it ajar, she supposed. Anyway, she was in here now, it made sense to have a look.

Along one long wall facing the bed are fitted wardrobes, not too dissimilar to the ones in Nan’s bedroom. The bed is made neatly with a frilly valance and a quilted eiderdown. There are two bedside tables that match the wardrobes, and on the side that she presumes is Maureen’s there is a slim vase with a short fake white rose inside. Chloe thinks of the white rose etched into the front door at Chestnut Avenue – perhaps it had pained Maureen to leave it behind? Beside the rose is a box of tissues, and a pair of reading glasses, and beside that, a tiny charm. Chloe picks it up. It looks like a pendant, as if it should belong on a chain, but instead it rests here, next to Maureen’s pillow. Etched into the metal is St Anthony and there is a picture of the saint cradling a child who Chloe presumes is Jesus. She turns the pendant over in her palm. On the back are three words: Pray for us. Chloe puts the pendant down exactly where she found it.