She gazes down at him sleeping beside her, still struck by how handsome he is, the shape of him, the simple joy of having him there. She thinks of something her father had said when he came for Christmas, seeking her out in the kitchen and drying dishes as she washed, while the others played noisy board games in the front room. She had looked up, struck by his uncharacteristic silence.

‘You know, I think David would have rather liked him.’ He didn’t look at her, but continued with his drying.

She wipes her eyes, as she does often when she thinks about this (she is giddily emotional at the moment), and turns back to the letter.

I am an old woman now, so it may not happen in my lifetime, but I believe that one day a whole series of paintings will emerge with unknown provenance, beautiful and strange, their colours unexpected and rich. They will feature a red-haired woman in the shade of a palm tree, or perhaps gazing out into a yellow sun, her face a little older, that hair perhaps streaked with grey, but her smile wide and her eyes full of love.

Liv looks up at the portrait opposite her bed, and the young Sophie gazes back at her, washed with the pale gold of the lamplight. She reads the letter a second time, studying the words, the spaces between them. She thinks back to Édith Béthune’s gaze: steady and knowing. And then she reads it again.

‘Hey.’ Paul rolls over sleepily towards her. He reaches out an arm and pulls her to him. His skin is warm, his breath sweet. ‘What you doing?’

‘Thinking.’

‘That sounds dangerous.’

Liv puts the letter down, and burrows under the duvet until she is facing him.

‘Paul.’

‘Liv.’

She smiles. She smiles every time she looks at him. And she takes a little breath. ‘You know how good you are at finding stuff …’