Leonie’s funeral had been a private family event, which was Ursula-speak for ‘no feminists’, and so Vee had got together with some of the old crowd, to drink and talk and miss their friend. Then she had gone back to trudging through grief, the plod and ache she remembered so well from the first weeks after her father died. She had seen the path ahead as a slow, sore journey to something like acceptance; she knew she hadn’t chosen it, but she had no choice but to keep walking along it.

And then the article about Leonie came out, to coincide with the publication of her book, which had been delayed by a month. It was on the day Vee had a meeting with her publisher about her photography book. She had been so proud of Women in Photographs, so excited for the ways it would empower her sisters. But now it seemed unimportant, egotistical, and she could not have cared less.

When she had got home, there were seventeen messages on her answering machine, most of them from journalists wanting a comment. Was it true that she had photographed Leonie Barratt as she died, watched her die, called for help only when it was too late? She’d sat on the floor and cried until she was empty. Then she played the messages again, and cried again. She didn’t know how to start. She had never been good with words, and now there were none.

She didn’t respond to the messages.

And then came the calls from friends, looking to find the truth, wondering how this could have happened. Surely Vee had not really done what Ursula accused her of, all over the newspapers, to anyone who would listen? Annabel offered to deal with them, but Vee knew it was her job. She made a list of everyone who called that week – forty-three people, in the end – and resolved to spend Saturday afternoon on the phone, explaining, explaining. Sort of explaining, anyway. It was easiest to say that she hadn’t known Leonie was dead than to try to articulate the denial and fear that kept her pressing the shutter: the deep sure knowledge that as soon as she stopped taking photographs, she would have to raise her voice, call for help, say the words. And as soon as she did that, Leonie would be gone for sure. It was impossible to explain, to a world not minded to understand – that it seemed that Leonie would not be gone, not really, until Vee called for help and made it so.

Bea, Fen and Kiki had all understood that she would never hurt Leonie. But even with the people she was closest to now Leonie was gone, she couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t do anything but cry, a day-in day-out leaking of grief and sorrow for Leonie and, yes, sorrow for herself.