Erica lays the photographs of her aunt side by side, imagines them in the same section of the exhibition as the moment of death photograph. They will make the exhibition visitor feel the loss of Leonie all the more. To see her so very alive, next to the image of her so newly dead. Erica feels sadness rising in her, bloating her heart and making her vision soften and shake; she wipes her tears, quickly, so they cannot fall on the photographs. Though Erica doesn’t recall much about Leonie or her death, she lived with her mother’s grief for all of her remembered life. Grief wakes in Erica now, a slow low keening in her guts, as she lets herself think of all she will not have again. No mother. No answers to the question of Leonie’s death. She was a fool to think that Vee could be persuaded to talk to her about Leonie. She is more of a fool to keep hoping for it.

Erica walks away from the table, stands at the window and looks at the beginning of spring in the budding of the trees. She breathes deep. She would cancel the exhibition tomorrow, throw all of her work away, just to know what happened that day. Her own scant memories don’t feel right. Veronica could help. but she won’t. She won’t.

And Erica could cry her heart out now, but she won’t. She goes back to the table, looks at her aunt with her academic’s eye. Leonie could be cold and clear. So can she.

It would be possible to date the photographs, roughly, without looking at the back, or at least put them into chronological order: flares narrow and hair shortens as the 1970s wear on, slogans become more consistent and placards more sophisticated. Vee, too, changes where she focuses. She moves from taking groups, vistas, gatherings, to focusing on faces and exchanges. Often, in these photographs, Leonie is arguing with someone. Sometimes it seems good-humoured but very often it clearly isn’t, with Leonie’s bulk pushing forward, her face thrusting close, her hand in a fist by her side or raised and flattened in the air, telling the other person to stop. Stop talking, her body language says, stop resisting, stop disagreeing.