“She’s at the Tate,” I told my parents, and had to raise my voice as an ambulance sped wailing past the restaurant. Roy’s phone joined in so enthusiastically that for a moment its version of a siren sounded just as loud. “There must be an accident somewhere,” I felt it necessary to establish. “They’re going from all over town.”

“That’s right,” Bella said, “I’m at the gallery. I’m just going in.”

“You must think a lot of Thelma,” my mother said.

“I expect you do. Wasn’t she your sister?”

“She was that,” my mother said but looked silenced.

“Before you go, Bella,” my father said, “we can see you.”

Presumably he meant to satisfy my mother’s eagerness to do so, but Bella sounded disconcerted. “How?”

“If Roy turns on his video and you do.”

“I don’t think they let you use cameras in here. I don’t want to get thrown out.”

“I can’t believe they’d do that,” my father said, but my mother intervened. “Don’t harass the poor girl, Jonathan. We’re already seeing her.”

This time Bella’s question sounded terser still. “How?”

“Roy has your picture on his phone.”

“I should have known he would,” Bella said. “I’ll look forward to meeting you both properly. Goodbye as well, Patrick.”

“She sounds like an old-fashioned girl.” More reproachfully my mother said to Roy “You should have told us she was shy.”

“She’s not.”

“I just thought she didn’t want to be seen. I suppose a lot of people your age are bothered how they look when there’s absolutely no reason.”

As she frowned at his phone Roy said “What’s wrong, gran? What did you stop saying before?”

“It was just that something seemed familiar. I couldn’t even tell you what.” With a weariness I gathered was directed at herself she said “Let me have another look.”

“You mean at Bell?”

I should have thought my mother could hear how this troubled him, but she only squinted at his phone and shook her head slowly as though to reorganise her thoughts. Far too eventually for my taste she said “I really don’t know.”

“What don’t you, gran?”

When her only answer was an even slower oscillation of her head, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Don’t you think you’re making a mistake?”

“Have you noticed me doing that much, Patrick?”

“You did get somebody’s name wrong.”

“I don’t think I’ve used it once, and it’s there for anyone to read. It’s Bella.”

“Not her,” I said and tried to make it clear that my laugh was at myself. “The lady by the tower block. You told me her name was Derrison but it turned out to be Dennison.”