She opened the first one to a page she had marked with a strip of card, and turned it round to face me, and pointed near the bottom.

It was a marriage record from 2003.

Two names I had never heard of.

A date in September.

And in the box at the bottom, in dark ink, in handwriting I had watched fill in a hospice intake form five weeks earlier, was a signature.

Beside it, printed, was one word.

WITNESS.

She turned to the next marker.