Emma stared at him, at those eyes that could be Connie’s eyes. She opened her mouth a little, but nothing would come out. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said eventually. Why didn’t she know this?

‘She died two months ago. I’m glad she’s not around to see what’s going on now. She adored Annie . . .’

‘Julia died two months ago?’

‘She took an accidental overdose.’

‘I am so sorry.’

‘It was my fault.’

Emma turned sharply. ‘No, no. You mustn’t say that.’ It was a stupid thing to say; those words meant nothing. People used to say them to her. ‘When Julia died, was Connie in Milton House?’

‘She’d just visited Connie, yes. Karl took her. It was a dreadful place. She came home with a terrible migraine. She went to bed and took some painkillers . . . I didn’t put the pills away. I didn’t understand about the Alzheimer’s. She didn’t remember that she’d already taken her painkillers . . . so she just kept taking more . . . I should have noticed,’ he said, bringing his cold mottled hand up to his face and pinching the skin between his eyes again as if he could press it all away. ‘I should have taken better care . . .’

‘Oh, Mr. de Cadenet, I am so sorry. Was Connie told about Julia?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But she wasn’t allowed to come to the funeral.’

Why, in God’s name, had no one told her that Connie was grieving?

* * *

Much later, after she had tidied up, cleaned the sitting room and the kitchen, and taken all the bin bags to a local charity shop, Emma drove back across the bridge in the darkness, a cigarette in her fingers, tears blurring the city’s lights. She drove through Kew and hit the North Circular, past those grim grubby houses all the way back to Wood Green, eventually letting herself in to the ordered safety of her own house. She leant against the door, blocking out the day behind her.

In the kitchen she could see Si seated at the table eating and she remembered that hours ago she’d said she would pick up some lamb and make them supper. She walked down the hall into the kitchen. ‘Hi, love,’ she said.

‘Thanks for letting me know you weren’t going to be back,’ he said, pointedly getting up and putting his scraps in the recycling box before exiting the room.

Chapter 11

May 25