I wanted so badly to break down and cry in his arms, but somehow I couldn’t. Instead Joe cried, tears coursing down his lived-in face, as he told me how wonderful my husband had been, and how lucky he was to have known me. He said I was family to him and that I must lean on him over the next few weeks. He kissed me on both cheeks and held my hands in his and told me very solemnly that I didn’t have to be strong. He scoured the pan I’d burned the rice in, wiped the kitchen table and put out my rubbish bin. He even started trying to clear up some of the mess, lifting piles of paper and putting books on shelves in a frantic, utterly ineffectual way until I told him to stop. Then he left and I continued with my task.

When I had broken the news to someone, I ticked off their name on my piece of paper. Sometimes a child answered or a partner I didn’t know or didn’t know well enough. I didn’t leave a message, I didn’t even say who had called. I did less well on Greg’s part of the list. By the time I got to them, people had started leaving for work. I didn’t phone people’s mobiles. I couldn’t bear the idea of talking to people on trains, of them having to keep their voice down, getting embarrassed about their reactions in front of strangers.

I also got slowed up because by then the phone had started ringing. People I’d talked to had digested the news and thought of things they needed to say, questions they wanted to ask. Friends had rung other friends and some of those friends immediately rang me and if they couldn’t get through, they rang my mobile, which I switched off. Later I discovered that if they couldn’t get through to my mobile, they’d sent me an email. But a lot of them did get through, one expression of grief after another, so that they seemed to merge into a continual howl. After each call, I wrote the name at the bottom of the list so that I wouldn’t call them again by mistake.

One of the calls wasn’t from a friend or relative, but from WPC Darby, one of the women who had broken the news to me. She asked how I was and I didn’t really know what to say. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, “but did I say anything about identifying the body?”

“I can’t remember,” I said.

“I know it’s a difficult time,” she said, and there was a pause.

“Oh,” I said. “You want me to identify the . . .” I stopped. “My husband. But you came here. You told me about it. You know already.”