After placing the mailbox key on the kitchen worktop, she concocted a bottle full of water, distilled vinegar, lemon juice and drops of lavender oil using ingredients she’d brought in her handbag. When she’d finished wiping down all the surfaces, the apartment smelled like a fresh field in springtime, although the hollows in the carpets still remained.

Liv recalled a trick her mum once showed her. If you placed ice cubes on sunken areas of carpet, they melted and the fibers fluffed up like magic.

Essie’s freezer was still plugged in and Liv was pleased to find a tray of ice in the bottom drawer. She pressed out the cubes and placed them in lines along the indentations. Soon, the last traces of Essie would be gone for good.

When she finished, she sat on the windowsill in the writing room and looked out across the city, no longer fearful about the long drop down to the streets below. The soothing scent of lavender helped her thoughts to drift.

In her head, she heard Essie’s pen scribbling and the sound of crumpled paper balls plopping onto the carpet. She almost reached out to pick one up. She listened to her breath for a while, the only sound in the room.

All Essie’s books had gone, and the photos that displayed a lifetime of memories, too. Whatever Essie might have lost over the years, her passion, her health and her ability to love, she and Liv had found each other, even if it was in an unusual way.

“We could have been a good team, Essie,” she whispered. “But it’s time to move on, on my own. I want to keep diving for treasure.”

She had always thought that forty-two-year-old mums didn’t appear in fairy tales, but she didn’t believe that any longer. If stories didn’t exist the way you wanted them, you had to create your own. And whatever happened in Liv’s life from now on, she knew Essie’s influence would stay with her forever, like an invisible force field, making her feel brave. Making her feel like Liv Green rather than Georgia Rory.

She wiped a tiny smear off the window with her sleeve and reluctantly got to her feet. She padded toward the writing room door and stood there for a while, allowing herself one last memory of Essie sitting at her desk. The author had her back to Liv. Her head was bowed and her black bob obscured her face.

Liv placed a hand against the doorframe. “I’m not sure I can totally understand everything you did, Essie, but I’ll always try to think of you with kindness.”

She imagined Essie lifting her chin, turning her head and pressing her fingertips together. As Liv pulled the door closed, the two women held each other’s gaze and smiled at each other through the gap, until it finally clicked shut.

Liv lowered her chin.