“Have you a credit card?”

Eve fumbles in the pockets of her jeans and finds a battered plastic library card. “God knows how many times this has been through the wash.”

Grace takes the card, slides it under the metal arm, shifts it aside, then lifts the window as far as she can; there is just enough space to maneuver her head and shoulders through. She tips forward, clasping the sides of the little sink beneath, and, twisting her hips clear, jumps to the floor. The door bolt slides back easily and she opens the door. Eve is gazing at the trees. Despite her comfortable home, her plentiful possessions, the food on her table, her face has that gaunt suffering look familiar from the television news, of desperate mothers on beaches, in camps, or up against barbed wire at a road block; women enduring grief, enduring loss. Grace pulls her inside quickly.

“Let’s look in the bedroom first,” Eve says hoarsely. “That’s where they found her clothes.”

There is a smoothly made bed in the tiny room, a couple of checkered shirts in the closet, an empty chair, nothing in the trash can or under the bed. There is little trace of the man himself, little to go on. They go back to the hall; the heat is suffocating.

“I haven’t been in here for years, this was where our nanny lived.” Eve laughs, an embarrassed, miserable sound. “It was icy cold back then. She locked us out of our house to keep it tidy till my parents returned and shut us in here instead. My brother got out; he climbed the fence behind the wood and ran along the railway to meet his friends in the village. I didn’t dare. I can’t think why we never told; she would have been sacked immediately.”

Children don’t tell, though, not even the most important things; her kids have told her nothing for weeks. Grace looks at Eve, seeing a small girl left on her own, a little girl who might grow up desperate for warmth, who might marry quickly, too quickly, and look again.

The surfaces are bare in the kitchen, the kettle is shining, even the floor looks newly washed. Eve opens cupboard doors revealing cups lined up, crockery neatly stacked. The handles of his saucepans are precisely aligned.

“It’s so tidy.” Eve is looking under the sink where the bottles of detergents are in height order, the dish towels in color-coded stacks. “Too tidy.”

“Perhaps he needs order, some people are like that,” Grace replies. I’m a bit like that. Maybe that’s why the kids love Eve’s place so much, for its disorder, the messy chaos, the opportunities it presents, freedom among them. The chance to break the rules, do things you wouldn’t normally dream of; maybe that’s what appealed to Martin. She gazes around at the barren surfaces of the kitchen, but Eve is hurrying past her, out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. When Grace catches up with her she is staring at the gleaming pink bath, the matching sink and toilet.