He seemed taken aback. “There’s not much personal stuff. I think Tania’s already packed up most of it. I really don’t think there’s anything else except clients’ files and government regulations.”

“It’s his work things I want to go through. His papers, his diary, his appointments.”

“I see.” He sounded sympathetic but stern, too, and I dropped my eyes under his gaze.

“There must be something to show me he was having an affair with this Milena.”

“Ellie . . .”

“Because I’m telling you, Joe, there’s nothing at home—I mean nothing—that suggests he was having an affair with her or anyone else. You had no idea, or so you say. Neither did Fergus. Or anyone. And nor did I. Even now I look back and can’t see it.”

Joe nodded a few times, then got up and stared out at the room beyond. Then he turned back to me. On his face was an expression of kind patience that made me squirm. “Maybe he was just good at keeping secrets.”

“He can’t have been that good. Not Greg. He was incapable of lying about anything. If he was having an affair, someone would have known. There would be evidence somewhere.”

“But don’t you see, Ellie? Whatever you do, however much you search, you can’t prove he wasn’t having an affair?”

“He couldn’t have left no trace.”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps you’ll turn his whole life upside down and investigate everything and eventually find something.”

“Well, then.”

“But why do you want to?”

“Why? Because I have to. Don’t you understand? I loved him. I thought he loved me . . .”

“He loved you.”

“I knew him, Joe. I knew our life together. Or I thought I did. And now he’s dead and there’s this mystery and everyone’s pitying me and I look back at our life and I can’t see it any longer, can’t trust it. It’s like the lights have all gone out and everything I trusted I can’t anymore. And I can’t ask him. I want to ask him what the hell was going on. I can’t believe he won’t ever be able to tell me, that we won’t be able to talk about it together. If he was dead and that was it, no other woman involved, at least I could miss him and remember him with tenderness and feel good about what we had—but even that’s muddied by this. I can’t even mourn him properly. I feel humiliated, ashamed, tangled up in all these emotions. It’s a mess. I’m a mess.”

“He loved you,” Joe repeated. His voice was gentle, insistent. “Even if he was having an affair, he loved you very much.”

“So you think he was, then!”

“I’m saying if.”

“I don’t want ifs.”