Jamie wondered what she would be like. Maybe they could be friends. A small voice in his head wondered if they could be something more. He hadn’t been with a woman for a long time. Smiling to himself, he pushed open the door. A blonde-haired woman was facing the window, looking out at the city beyond. She was very tall.

It was Lucy. She had found him. His heart yo-yoed into his stomach.

But when the woman turned around he saw, with a whoosh of relief, that it wasn’t her.

‘Are you alright?’ she said. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

He muttered something and backed out of the room, going into his own. Great, now she thought he was a weirdo. He decided to distract himself by unpacking his backpack, pulling his clothes out and folding them up, putting them in piles. He didn’t have many. He took out the framed photo of himself and Kirsty that had survived the fire. As he lifted the backpack towards the top of the wardrobe, it tipped upside down and something fell out.

He crouched and picked it up. A USB stick. Where had that come from?

Curious, he took it with him and went downstairs, where Carol was watching TV.

‘Is there a computer here that I could use.’

She smiled sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have a public computer.’ But seeing his disappointed expression, she said, ‘But you can borrow my laptop for a few minutes if it’s important.’

‘Yes, thank you.’

He took the laptop upstairs and sat down on the bed, inserting the USB stick into the slot. There was one folder on the device, named ‘Lucy - Collection’. He opened it. There were eighteen image files. Jamie clicked on the first, which was entitled ‘Jane’.

It was a scan of a death notice from a newspaper.

Jane Wilkins (nee Fry) peacefully in her sleep, aged 83, at Orchard House. Beloved mother of Simon and Margaret, grandmother to…

He clicked on the next file. Again it was a death notice, this time for a man.

Cedric John Jenkins, aged 85, died peacefully at Orchard House. Will be much missed…

He clicked through the others, faster and faster. Not all of the death notices mentioned Orchard House, but most of them did. Orchard House was the nursing home that Lucy worked at. And he remembered now where the USB stick had come from. It had been in the carrier bag he’d found in the Newtons’ desk, the bag full of spectacles and hearing aids.

A chill ran through Jamie’s entire body.

They were souvenirs.

The treasures of an angel of death.

Hand shaking, he ejected the USB stick and slipped it into his pocket. He took the laptop downstairs and gave it back to Carol.

‘Find what you were looking for?’ she asked.

‘More than I bargained for, actually. Is there a police station near here?’