That made the situation feel smaller, like a pile of papers we could examine one page at a time.

When she left, Aunt Beatrice arrived with Noah freshly changed and sleeping against her shoulder.

‘How did it go?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know anything yet,’ I said.

She smiled.

‘That sounds like an honest beginning.’

Richard came back from the corridor with two cups of tea and sat down by the window.

I asked him why he had been listed as an emergency contact for so long, even after I stopped attending family gatherings.