The service was to take place in Greengate, a tiny, old-fashioned place five miles outside Manningham city center. The village’s terraced houses were built from gray stone and the village store still sold tweed hats and carved walking sticks. It was the kind of place where everyone knew each other’s name, and the name of their cat, too. If Essie craved privacy, this was the right location.

Liv hunched against the rain and hurried past a small grocery shop with boxes of soggy vegetables outside, toward the address of the crematorium that Anthony had given her. She was glad the day was gray and dull, fitting weather for a farewell.

It had been twelve days since he’d informed her about Essie’s death and since then Liv had functioned like a zombie. She’d told Jake, Johnny and her mum that she had a bad cold and was staying at home so Essie didn’t catch it. Keeping the author’s death from her family was like a hairball in her throat she longed to cough up.

She left a message advising her cleaning agency she wasn’t well enough to work at Platinum, and then rang Hannah to call in sick, affecting a croaky voice.

“Oh, sweetie, I hope you’re okay. When will you be back?” she cooed. “I promised Tarkers and Jules you’d help them make a wormery.”

Liv felt numb and stayed in bed. She stared at the ceiling in disbelief. Tears waterfalled down her face, wetting her pillow.

What had happened to Essie? Why had she left such strange demands, and why specify secrecy for six months? None of it seemed real.

She heard Jake downstairs on the phone with Katrina, pacing around the kitchen and slamming cupboard doors as he talked about their parents’ pensions and the cost of new printing equipment. But Liv felt curiously blank, as if Essie’s death had stolen her worries about Paperpress away.

Johnny occasionally appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, whispering to ask if she knew where his football socks and shorts were. Liv pulled the bedcovers up around her shoulders and read Essie’s debut novel The Moon on the Water, never growing bored of the book that had been so important to her growing up. When she finished it, she reached for Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and found comfort in the familiar prickliness of the main character.

After a few days of lying in bed, Liv forced herself to get up. Her skin cried out for Jake’s strong arms to wrap around her. Not being able to tell anyone about Essie or the huge task she’d left behind made her feel like a prisoner in solitary confinement.