We were sitting on three sides of the small table, with a curried egg salad in the middle, and the fourth—where Greg should have been, his complicit smile meant just for me—empty. Kitty divided the salad neatly into three and put my portion on the plate in front of me. I could feel her eyes on me. She and Paul had never taken to me: my job was too odd, not a proper job at all, really; my clothes were strange; they didn’t approve of my opinions, which was strange because I’d never thought of myself as someone who had them. Yet now here I was, the publicly wronged and tragically widowed daughter-in-law.

“Aren’t you hungry, Ellie?” said Kitty.

“This is lovely.” I took a determined bite of my egg and swallowed it with an effort. “I just wanted to say that it seems strange to me that we’ve never talked about what happened.”

Paul looked grim and embarrassed and didn’t speak.

“I didn’t like to ask Greg about things,” said Kitty, placidly. “If he had come to me and said he wasn’t happy I would have listened. I’m his mother after all. I suppose he must have had his reasons for doing what he did.”

“Our marriage was very happy,” I said, pushing the plate away.

The two of them exchanged a glance.

“It must be hard for you to bear,” said Kitty.

“I don’t need to bear it,” I said. “That’s another reason why I’m here today. I wanted to tell you that Greg was a good man. He was the most loving husband.” I looked at the clock on the wall: I had only been there for twenty-five minutes. When could I decently leave? “I trusted him.” Then I corrected myself: “I trust him.”

“IT WAS AWFUL,” I said to Joe, who had insisted on taking time off work to pick me up from the station and drive me home, even though it would have been much quicker to catch the Underground, and even though I didn’t want to go home. It was warm and luxurious inside the BMW and I sank gratefully back into the seat.

He grinned and put a hand on my knee. I pretended it wasn’t there and eventually he moved it to change gear.

“I’ll bet it was,” he said. “I’ve met them, remember? How Greg came from a family like that I’ll never know. At least you’ve done your duty.”

“I took them books they didn’t want, photos they gave back, and memories they were trying to erase. We all hated every minute of it.”

“What are you doing later?”

“This and that.”

“Are you working?”

“A little,” I said evasively.

“Good. You need to get back to things, Ellie.”

“You’re probably right.”

“You look a bit tired. Have you been okay?”

“Some days are better than others.”