So Christmas Eve in London had been just theirs, Karen’s, John’s and Mathis’s. And over the years, they had created their own traditions: a long, late breakfast, a Christmas Eve walk during which Karen would complain about the lack of snow, John about the lack of sun and Mathis about having to go for a walk at all. Herring in all its forms, smoked lamb ribs and red cabbage for dinner. No Heimö liquor – that’s where John had drawn the line – and Karen had secretly been grateful she had to wash the lamb down with a nice red instead. Gifts in the evening and then a big jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table (while Mathis furtively played on his Game Boy under the table), big cups of hot chocolate, a healthy splash of rum in hers and John’s, a fistful of marshmallows in Mathis’s. Christmas Day and Boxing Day belonged to the Hornbys, but Christmas Eve was theirs.

John’s parents were never anything but welcoming. And yet, Karen had never felt as though she fitted in fully, had always known she probably wasn’t the daughter-in-law they’d hoped for from the tolerant smiles at her strange accent, which became more pronounced when she felt nervous; the polite questions about Doggerian Christmas traditions and the nods and comments along the lines of ‘how wonderfully quaint’ or ‘so delightfully rustic’ when she described them; the discreetly exchanged glances that made it clear that what they really meant was ‘simple and unsophisticated’.

‘You’re imagining it,’ John had said, and she’d let him believe he was right. Not to spare him, but because she knew there was nothing else he could say.

The first few years had been the most difficult; eventually, her in-laws’ love for Mathis had eased the worst of their stiffness. John’s father had turned out to possess a dry wit Karen had learnt to appreciate and, as a retired prosecutor, he had shown a genuine interest in her criminology studies. Unlike John’s mother, he had been supportive of her decision to resume her studies once Mathis was old enough to go to preschool, and Karen suspected he had put in a good word for her when she applied to join a research project about the potential impact of economic factors on verdicts in rape cases. They had rarely agreed on anything, but their discussions had been genuinely interesting.

But afterwards, not a word. Not even their deep-seated instinct for propriety had been able to induce Richard and Theresa Hornby to look the woman who they felt had robbed them of their son and grandson in the eye. Not even at the funeral.

*