I literally have one minute; parents are supposed to collect children by five. I am parked in a side street and spot the odd familiar parent and child, hurrying along in the rain. A man in a yellow hi-vis jacket is picking up litter with one of those grabber sticks that Andy was always so keen to get his mitts on. ‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘So, um, did the extensions de-matt?’ I’m aware that I’m putting off hearing bad news. We’ve been friends since we were seven years old, and I can sense her discomfort by the first sound that comes out of her mouth.

‘No, they’ll need redoing. It’s like having a second mortgage, the maintenance of Meg’s hair.’

I chuckle dutifully. Okay, now tell me what happened, and why they think it’s a bad idea.

‘Anyway,’ she goes on, ‘I gave Hannah your proposal, first chance I had …’

‘Right …’ I’m trying to sound positive.

‘She’s the Senior Exhibitions Manager,’ Isla explains. ‘She was off last week. I was told it’d be better to wait until she was back, that no one else could take it forward …’ She pauses.

‘But it’s not good news, is it?’

Isla sighs. ‘I’m so sorry, Viv. I know you put tons of work into it. It was her first day back today and, I don’t know, maybe if I’d waited …’ My heart seems to have crashed. ‘But I was so impatient,’ she goes on, ‘and I just couldn’t wait to share it with her.’

‘She’s said no, then?’

‘Not exactly. I mean, it wasn’t as if she thought it was a terrible idea. She could see its potential. She said maybe we could have arranged a chat, if it wasn’t chaos around here, after what happened this morning …’

‘Wait … what happened?’

‘Oh, there was some vandalism. It’s been pretty bad, actually. Someone went straight down to natural history with a hammer or something – I don’t know what it was exactly. I was in the café when it happened. It was some man, a crazy person. He started smashing the display cases, threatening staff, shouting that he was going to liberate them …’

‘Liberate the staff?’

‘No – the collection. The snow fox and red squirrel. The wildcat and elk.’

‘The stuffed animals? That’s terrible!’

‘It is. The whole floor’s a wreck. God knows how long it’ll be closed for. That is, if it even reopens at all.’

‘What was he on about, liberating them?’

‘I know,’ she exclaims. ‘It’s taxidermy, for God’s sake. Most have been dead for over 150 years. What did he think they’d do, scamper off to the wilderness?’

‘There’s no wilderness nearby.’