‘Sod off, Charlie! I’m just trying to relax.’

‘We’ve got our own bath you can use.’

‘Yeah, but this one’s deeper. They’ve got bubbles. You can go in after me.’

‘No chance. Why’ve you always got to do this?’

‘What?’

‘Mess about with things that don’t belong to you. You’ve no respect.’

She leaned her head back, blinking at him. ‘It’s called living. You should try it.’ Then, ‘There’s an old mill by the stream, Nellie Dean …’ She sighed. ‘You’ll cop an eyeful in a minute, if you plan on standing there. Get lost.’

‘You’re wrong in the head, you are,’ he told her.

‘Don’t I know it.’

He made sure the latch closed properly behind him. But, presented with the lonely darkness of the Mayhoods’ room, he felt the need to switch a light on. And, at once, he saw the double bed with Florence’s possessions laid out neatly on the table at the pillow end: a carriage clock, a water glass, a novel she was reading called My Cousin Rachel and a jar of Nulon hand cream. He couldn’t fight the urge to hold them all, which made a hypocrite of him, but who would know?

He wandered over, toeing the long vallance with his shoe, and pictured her asleep below him, beautiful, at peace. It didn’t take too much consideration. Everything he’d charged his sister with came just as easily to him. You’ve no respect. He lifted up the counterpane, revealed the pillow’s whiteness and its smears of grey and beige, and then he knelt right down and kissed it – more than that, he breathed in every trace of Florence that was present in the fabric. Hyacinths. A honeyed kind of shampoo that she used. Pond’s cream, too. He wished he could’ve bottled up the scent for ever, but his memory would have to be enough.

The counterpane was easy to fold back; he smoothed it flat, left no impressions. In the en suite, Joyce was splashing like an eel in a tank. He rummaged in the dressing table, found a load of curlers with hairs twisted in the joins. He plucked a couple off and put them in his mouth a moment. There were other things he wouldn’t dare disturb for fear that he’d forget their places: many spools of thread and thimbles, scissors, tweezers, little brushes, make-up cases. On the chest of drawers beside the window, Florence had set out a browning picture in a frame, of handsome people old enough to be her parents, which he guessed they were – they had the same lean features – and a jewellery box he didn’t want to open. In another frame, there was a square of paper with two initials rendered lovingly in ink. FG. He could tell who’d done this for her and it cooled his blood. He pulled the top drawer out and everything he hoped to find was in there. Slips and stockings. Shifts and nightshirts and pyjamas. Knickers – functional and basic mostly, but some fancy silken ones and lacy numbers. If a pair went missing, she’d be sure to notice, given she was thrifty and responsible. But what if he could hide some in the corner of the scullery, as though they’d fallen from the pulley-rack? He could sneak them to the privy in the yard and wrap them in his fist. And then what? Let his sticky mess dry on the silk and stow them somewhere? He couldn’t think beyond the swelling in his crotch.