Chloe shakes her head quickly.

‘You’re not crazy, Maureen. If anything, Patrick is the one who won’t face reality. He’s the one who isn’t at peace with the past.’

Maureen pulls at the cuff of her sleeve, twisting it round between forefinger and thumb. Chloe knows only too well that sometimes the truth can feel uncomfortable. But this is important, this is something Maureen needs to hear.

‘Patrick says that it’s too painful to look back,’ Maureen says. ‘But isn’t it normal? It’s grief, isn’t it? But I can’t even do that. I don’t even know that she’s . . . that she, you know . . .’

Chloe nods because she does know. She still remembers those hours when Nan was missing. Imagine decades spent in that no-man’s land.

Maureen starts to cry, and on cue, Chloe gets up from her chair and wraps her arms around her shoulders. She feels Maureen relax into her arms, and she knows then that’s she’s got her. She can feel it. Between the soft sound of Maureen sobbing, Chloe listens out for Patrick’s car on the drive. She hates him for doing this to Maureen, she doesn’t want him to walk in and ruin this moment for them.

Maureen pulls a tissue from her sleeve, and reaches for Chloe’s hand.

‘Thank you, Chloe, I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here. Things have been hard with Patrick over the years. He’s a good man, but he’s not always been easy to live with. But recently – well, since you arrived, or perhaps it’s since we moved – he’s been different, he’s been . . .’

Chloe senses an opening. She sits back down opposite Maureen. Sometimes over the weeks, as she and Maureen have grown closer, it’s been easy to forget why she is here. But that one sentence reminds her that she has a job to do.

‘How has he been different?’ Chloe asks.

‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong—’

‘You’re not wrong, Maureen, you’ve got to stop thinking like this, you’ve got to stop letting him tell you you’re wrong or you’re crazy or . . .’

Maureen looks up at Chloe and her face softens. She reaches for her cheek, tucking a loose coil of black hair behind her ear.

‘Perhaps this does sound crazy,’ she says, ‘but I’ve often wondered what it would have been like if Angie . . . well, you know . . . and you being here, it’s answered that for me. You’re a good girl, Chloe. Your mum, she would have been proud of you.’

Chloe swallows down the mention of her mother. She doesn’t want to talk about that. She needs to hear more from Maureen.