He reaches up, opening the small square door and pulling down the ladder. It comes out with a shower of dust. He puts one foot in front of the other on the creaking rungs, then pokes his head through the gap. He gropes around for a light switch, clicking it on.

The light is dim but illuminates enough of the loft for Robin to see. It’s small, but the floor is boarded, and he carefully, awkwardly, pulls himself up into the space.

He looks around. There are boxes of many shapes and sizes, most of them close to the opening, where he assumes Josie must have just pushed them in quickly. He opens a few lids. One that clearly contains Christmas decorations and another with some old photo albums. He pulls one of them out: even in the dim light he can see sepia prints, faded shots of a tiny Finn being held by Josie. He stops himself getting distracted and puts it back, but leaves the box close to the entrance.

He shuffles further into the loft, opening and closing the tops of boxes as he goes. Curled-up cables, random crap, old clothes that must have been fancy-dress outfits. And then he sees something that makes him stop.

An A4 dark red folder. Plastic pages inside, gold writing on the cover. The National Record of Achievement: Robin had one, as did every teenager leaving school in the Nineties. It’s for the wrong time period, but the folder is stuffed, paper poking out of the plastic pages. Robin picks it up, curious. He opens it: it’s full of old certificates and school reports, dates spanning from their first year of secondary to the last. If something else remains from Finn’s time at secondary school, it will be in here.

He picks it up, and underneath, there they are. Piles of notebooks, of all shapes and sizes, stacked on top of one another in the box. He selects one: MAR–AUG 90 written in block capitals on the cover. Organised and meticulous, that was Finn all over. He puts it back, then selects another few, their dates marked clearly on the outside.

He hears Freya shout from downstairs. He takes one last look at the chaos in the loft, then climbs down the ladder, hauling the boxes of notebooks and photo albums with him, the red folder resting on top.

He carries them down to the living room, where Freya is waiting.

‘Lunch,’ she says grandly, pointing at two sandwiches, a bag of apples and two cans of Diet Coke.

‘You risked going out?’ Robin replies with a frown. ‘Did anyone see you?’

‘I went out the back.’ She pauses. ‘I was hungry. You’d rather I starve?’

He shakes his head, disbelievingly. ‘You’d make a shit burglar,’ he comments, but reluctantly concedes defeat. His stomach is rumbling, too; it’s been a long day already.