Grace sighed. ‘Everything! I don’t know. I lost my car. Everything in the house, including my laptop and everything in my home office. We had a safe, and it was meant to be fireproof; the jewellery my husband gave me was in there with all the valuations, I guess.’

‘You’re not sure? Had you opened the safe recently?’

‘No. I didn’t have the combination,’ said Grace miserably, realising how this sounded. ‘I often meant to ask Lawrence for it but I never needed to. I only wore the expensive jewellery on special occasions, and Lawrence always took it out for me. I kept the jewellery I wore every day in my bedroom drawer. It’s things like photos, sentimental things I’m upset about.’

He nodded. ‘Yes. It must be very distressing. Unfortunately, sentimental things have little commercial value, even though they often mean the most to their owners.’

‘But we’ll be reimbursed for the house, my car? Maybe my jewellery survived? Do you know what happened to things that were salvaged? And what about the big things that we had insured separately? Lawrence had a collection of silverware and some paintings . . .’

‘Do you recall ever listing such items? Do you have their details?’

‘You mean serial numbers or something? No. Well, I don’t know.’ She’d always been meticulous in everything she did, but Lawrence had insisted that he would look after their financial affairs. He’d said it was his way of helping to share their family workload. ‘I’m good with budgets – I work in advertising and manage major contracts. But I’ve been spoiled since I got married.’ She gave a weak smile. ‘It never occurred to me to perhaps keep duplicates of important papers.’

‘Yes. It’s always useful to keep copies of important documents somewhere safe.’

‘Wait, there was something.’ Grace frowned, thinking back. ‘I didn’t make any effort to understand it at the time, but there must be a copy with the solicitor or the bank.’

‘What is it?’

Grace paused, then said, ‘Lawrence gave me a form to sign. He said it was a family trust that he’d set up. Like a will. All our valuables and important items were registered in that trust. It was when I was pregnant. He said it was for the baby, for her future. I think it covered my jewellery, shares, things like that. He might have added the house later, too. He didn’t mention it to you?’

‘No . . . Did you read this document? What was this trust called? It could be helpful.’

‘Sorry, I don’t know, but Lawrence will. I just signed the signature page and didn’t read the rest.’ She paused, feeling even more anxious now. ‘It had to be sent off urgently, as I recall. Lawrence only ever referred to it as our family trust. He hasn’t mentioned it since, so he might have forgotten about it too.’

The agent scribbled something down then began to put his notepad and folders away.

‘Could be helpful. I’ll look into it.’ The man smiled and stood up. ‘Thank you for your time, Ms Hagen.’