I ran my finger along the window ledge. There was a fine coating of dust on the paintwork. People were clearing out; the downturn had seen to that. I should probably try to negotiate a better price—six months’ rent here would take most of my savings—but I found that kind of conversation difficult. I took a hands-off approach to money, like the queen. It had been Adam’s métier, when we were together, since he cared about it more. The day I went to fetch my things from his flat, he thrust some pictures of a house he’d just bought towards me. “This could have been yours,” he said grandly, as if sharing the deeds to Pemberley, rather than an unexceptional corner building in Catford. “Everything I own could have been yours.”

“And doesn’t it say it all,” I replied, wrapping my one good coat in tissue paper, “that I’d rather be doing this?”