She cleaned her house from top to bottom until it smelled of grapefruit and lavender. She made packed lunches and matched up socks, but all the time she could see Essie in her head, typing in her writing room with her back to the world. When Liv sat with Jake on the sofa in the evening, their bodies sank against each other like bags of treacle. They stared vacantly at the TV. He was too exhausted from his dealings with Katrina to talk, and she was still in shock.

In order to make sense of the author’s bizarre request, Liv tried to view it as her last wish. Perhaps she’d been woozy after the anesthetic, or even smuggled a bottle of gin into the hospital, so wasn’t coherent when she wrote in her notebook. Hopefully, Anthony would realize she hadn’t meant what she’d written. After all, Essie was a storyteller.

When Anthony phoned her with the funeral details, Liv had furtively taken the call inside the coat cupboard.

“It will take place on May the fifteenth, at Greengate Crematorium. Four thirty in the afternoon, the last service of the day,” he said.

Liv wrote the date on her hand. She’d once gone to a friend’s birthday party a day early, and another time missed one of Johnny’s important football matches.

“Ah, she also made another request,” Anthony added.

Liv flopped her head against the coats with a sigh. “Really? Was this written in her notebook, too?”

“It’s something she told me personally.” He cleared his throat. “In her own words, she doesn’t want any ‘fussing or faffing’ at her funeral. There should be no hymns, flowers or eulogy. You and I may attend but no one else.”

Liv didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Will a minister be there?” she said.

“Actually, no.” His voice expressed little emotion.

Liv felt like she was sinking into mud, and she replied more sharply than she meant to. “This is just weird. Why doesn’t she want to be remembered properly? If she asked you to jump off a cliff would you do it?”

“As Essie’s solicitor and the executor named in her will, it’s my legal responsibility to carry out her terms,” he said. “Insisting that no one else attends her funeral is the most straightforward of her requests.”

Liv found the smallest smile at his comment, and the shared strangeness of their situation. He did the same, and for a moment she felt like a fine strand of silk connected them together somehow.

When Liv pushed the huge oak crematorium door open, she shivered as she stepped inside. The main room was spacious and light with a large window looking out onto a garden with a rockery and waterfalls.