‘That I do.’ She had pressed a finger to her lips and kissed it before brushing her fingertip against Oliver’s mouth. He had nodded his head once. A silent acceptance that he knew how much she adored him. That he adored her too. It became their signal at the numerous functions they had to attend where Oliver would feel out of his depth, unable to keep up with the small talk. The politics. The bow tie around his neck feeling like cheese wire. His eyes would search out hers across the ballroom, she’d be grouped with the rest of the wives. She’d press her finger to her mouth and Oliver would nod.

Their love had been colourful and vibrant then.

Oliver slotted his Corsa into his usual space around the back of the Institute, next to the bins. A million miles from his old homecomings where his Jag would crunch up the driveway. Clem would have been shadowed in the doorway, honeyed light spilling around her shoulders, greeting him with a tumbler of whiskey and her brilliant, brilliant smile.

It was Sofia, his assistant, who greeted him now.

‘How did it… Oh, Oliver.’

He couldn’t summon a smile.

‘You mustn’t lose heart.’ She knew him so well. ‘There’ll be other patients—’

‘I know,’ Oliver sighed. He didn’t explain that his disappointment wasn’t only because after years of hard work he was finally ready to commence clinical trials and he thought he had found a subject, but because the similarities between Anna and Clem had unsettled him. ‘I’m going to get changed.’

His quarters were cramped. Stuffy. The air-conditioning in this part of the building broken. One of these days Oliver would get around to having it fixed but for now he didn’t mind the discomfort, welcomed it almost. He supposed he felt he deserved it. Besides, he had come from nothing.

He could live off site, somewhere infinitely more spacious, but he preferred to plough every penny into the Institute. Besides, the tiny lounge that also doubled as a dining room often reminded him of where he had grown up, the kind of place he would probably have spent all of his adult life if it hadn’t been for his brief, glorious relationship with Clem.

Oliver took off his tie. He rarely wore one but he had wanted to make a good impression.

It was quiet in this place he couldn’t quite call home and that wasn’t only because of his stark surroundings. He missed Clem tinkling on her piano, humming along to the Billie Holiday tracks that crackled and hissed from her record player. He couldn’t relax in the silence – it was a stark reminder that he lived alone – but he didn’t feel entirely comfortable in the company of others either.