She gazed around her. She didn’t know what she was looking for, or where she should look for it. There were tubs of face cream and tubes of body lotion on Bridget’s bedside table, as well as a novel she had never heard of and a dial of birth-control pills; underwear and T-shirts in the chest; make-up and jewellery on the small dressing-table by the window. She pulled open its small drawers, seeing tangled necklaces, hairbrushes, face wipes, several bottles of perfume. She ran her hand along the clothes hanging from the rack, feeling the soft brush of their different textures. Something jangled in the pocket of a scarlet velvet jacket and Frieda put her hand in and pulled out a set of keys. She held them in her hand. Two Chubb keys, two Yale keys, their metal cold against her palm. She heard the bang of Rudi’s spoon and the hammer of rain outside. She put the keys into her pocket and went downstairs again, making sure to close the bedroom door behind her.

Rudi fell asleep and Tam and Ethan played with some wooden bricks and soft toys and mostly Frieda just sat and half watched them. She intervened from time to time – when Tam tried to wrestle a doll from Ethan’s grasp, or when Ethan reached for an exotic and fragile vase on a bookshelf – but mainly her thoughts were elsewhere and the children were just a slightly agitating noise in the background.

Sasha came home very late, when Ethan was already in bed. She had had a tiring day and her face was drawn. Frieda saw how sharp her cheekbones were, how thin her wrists.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Sasha said. ‘I just couldn’t get away. We had an after-work meeting that went on and on, and all I could think of was that I was –’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Frieda put a hand on Sasha’s arm. ‘Really. That’s why I’m here, so that you don’t have to be anxious all the time. I’ll make you some tea and then I’ll go.’

‘Tea? Wine. Frank’s coming round in about an hour to talk about childcare arrangements.’

‘Just a very quick drink.’

But as they went into the kitchen the doorbell rang, and then the door knocker was rapped hard and Sasha’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘It’s Frank,’ she whispered. ‘He’s the only one who does that.’

‘I thought you said he was coming in an hour.’

‘He’s early.’

The bell and the knocker sounded again.

‘I don’t really want to see him,’ said Frieda.

‘No. I know. Oh dear.’

‘I’ll wait upstairs.’

‘He might be ages.’

‘Then I’ll read a book.’

She went swiftly upstairs, and into the little room that served as a spare room and study. The front door opened and she could hear Frank’s voice greeting Sasha and Sasha replying. There was a book of photographs by a German pre-war photographer on the shelves. She pulled it down and turned the pages slowly, looking at the faces of people who were long dead. She thought about what they must have lived through, those who were posing so calmly for the camera. She had a sudden longing, so sharp it was like a physical blow, for her garret room at home, the sketchpad and soft-leaded pencils, the silence of the rooms and London lying outside, vast and glittering in the night.

Their voices came from the front room but mainly she couldn’t make them out. She heard some of Frank’s phrases: ‘We can’t go on like this’; ‘We have to make arrangements.’ Sasha’s replies, such as they were, were just a murmur through the wall. The voices were raised slightly: ‘I know you’ve been having a hard time, Sasha. You look thin and tired. But it doesn’t need to be like this.’

Frieda tried not to listen. She was used to hearing people’s secrets. It was her job. But now she thought of what she was doing in Bridget and Al’s house, ferreting through drawers, knowing what she shouldn’t know; listening to Frank and Sasha as they talked about their future. She went on looking at the photographs, but still she heard the voices, and she thought about Sandy, his bitterness when they had parted. They, too, had loved each other once, and for her the ending had been like the tide going out, the gradual withdrawing of passion and a sense of a shared future. For him it had been like a blow falling, leaving him wounded, humiliated and confused. For a while, he had become like a stranger to her but now that he was dead she felt close to him again, and full of a terrible sadness for him.

She heard Frank’s voice again, the scraping of a chair. He must be standing up.

‘Yes.’ Sasha’s voice was subdued. ‘I will.’

Then the front door opened and shut, and after a few moments, Sasha called up to her that Frank was gone.

They sat at the kitchen table and drank a glass of wine. Sasha was visibly agitated. She told Frieda that Frank thought they should try again.

‘And what did you reply?’

‘I told him I would think about it.’

‘Is it what you want?’

‘I’m just tired out, Frieda. Just tired out.’

‘I know you are.’

‘I feel all wrong.’

‘In what way?’

‘I can’t say.’ She shook her head from side to side. ‘I can’t explain.’

‘You could try.’

‘You’ve got enough going on in your life as it is. You’ve already done so much to help me.’ She took a large mouthful of her wine. ‘Actually, there’s something I should tell you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I met up with everyone last night. Reuben and Josef and Jack, Chloë and Olivia.’

‘Oh.’

‘Everyone wants to help you, Frieda. That’s why we met – it was like a meeting that Reuben convened. With great quantities of Ukrainian food, of course, and vodka.’

‘That’s kind,’ said Frieda, neutrally, imagining them all there without her. ‘You didn’t say anything?’

‘No, of course not, although it felt impossible to behave naturally. Jack kept saying: “What would Frieda do?”’

Frieda smiled. ‘Did he? And what would Frieda do?’

‘No one knew.’

‘Good.’

It was after ten when Frieda left Sasha. The rain had stopped and the night was cool and clear, with a moon showing above the rooftops. Puddles glistened on the streets and the plane trees dripped. She walked at a steady pace and before long she was on such familiar ground that she scarcely had to think about where she was going. Her feet took her along streets she knew well, whose names spoke to her of their history, past an ancient church, rows of houses and shops, and then Number 9, the café her friends ran and where she always took her Sunday breakfast. Down into the little cobbled mews. And at last she was there, standing at the dark blue door.

Was this stupid? Yes, almost certainly it was. It was the most stupid thing she could do, but while her head told her to stay away her heart ordered her to go on, and her heart was stronger. The longing in her was great so she took the keys that she’d found in Bridget’s jacket from her pocket. There were two Chubbs and two Yales. She took the smaller Chubb and inserted it into the locks, then one of the Yales, and as she had known as soon as she had seen them, they fitted, turned. The door swung open and she was home.

For a moment, she stood in the hallway and allowed the house to settle around her. It still smelt familiar – of beeswax polish and wooden floorboards and many books, and also of the herbs that she had on her kitchen windowsill. Josef must be watering them for her, as he had promised. A shape slid against her legs and she bent down to stroke the cat that was purring softly, unsurprised by her return. She knew she mustn’t turn on the light, so she made her way into the kitchen to find the torch that she kept there.

Switching it on, she moved from room to room, the cat at her heels like a shadow, taking in everything the torchlight fell on. The chess table, the pieces still there in the pattern of the last game she had played through; the empty hearth and the chair beside it, waiting for her; the large map of London in the hallway; the narrow stairs taking her up to her room, where the bed was made up with fresh sheets, just as she had left it, and the bathroom where Josef’s splendid bath sat. Up the next, even narrower, flight of stairs and into her garret study. She sat down at the desk, under the skylight, and picked up a pencil. On the blank page of the sketchbook she drew a single line. When she returned, she would make that line into part of a drawing.