By the time he reaches the bedroom door he can barely meet her eye. He shakes his head, like someone trying to dislodge a fly. ‘Um … Look. I’ll – I’ll call you.’

‘Okay.’ She tries to sound light. ‘Whatever.’

As the door shuts behind him, she leans forward, ‘Hope the work thing goes …’

Liv stares in disbelief at the space where he has been, her fake cheery words echoing around the silent house. Emptiness creeps into the space that Paul McCafferty has somehow opened inside her.

17

The office is empty, as he had known it would be. He launches himself through the door, the old fluorescent bulbs stuttering into life overhead, and makes straight for his office. Once inside, he rummages through the piles of files and folders on his desk, not caring as the papers spew out across the floor, until he finds what he is looking for. Then he flicks on his desk lamp, and lays the photocopied article in front of him, smoothing it with his palms.

‘Let me be wrong,’ he mutters. ‘Just let me have got this wrong.’

The wall of the Glass House is only partly visible, as the image of the painting has been enlarged to fill the A4 space. But the painting is unmistakably The Girl You Left Behind. And to the right of her, the floor-to-ceiling window that Liv had shown him, the view that extended out towards Tilbury.

He scans the extract of text.

Halston designed this room so that its occupants would be woken by the morning sun. ‘I originally set out to put some kind of screening system up for summer daylight hours,’ he says. ‘But actually you find that if you’re woken naturally, you’re less tired. So I never bothered putting them in.’

Just off the master bedroom is a Japanese style

It ends, cut short by the photocopy. Paul stares at it for a moment, then turns on his computer and types DAVID HALSTON into a search engine. His fingers thrum on the desk as he waits for it to load.

Tributes were paid yesterday to the modernist architect David Halston, who has died suddenly in Lisbon at the age of 38. Initial reports suggest his death was as a result of undiagnosed heart failure. Local police are not said to be treating his death as suspicious.

His wife of four years, Olivia Halston, 26, who was with him at the time, is being comforted by family members. A member of the British consulate in Lisbon appealed for the family to be allowed to grieve in private.

Halston’s death cuts short a stellar career, notable for its innovative use of glass, and fellow architects yesterday lined up to pay tribute to the

Paul lowers himself slowly into his chair. He flicks through the rest of the paperwork, then re-reads the letter from the lawyers of the Lefèvre family.

a clear-cut case, which is unlikely to be time-barred given the circumstances … stolen from an hotel in St Péronne circa 1917, shortly after the artist’s wife was taken prisoner by the occupying German forces …

We hope that TARP can bring this case to a swift and satisfactory conclusion. There is some leeway in the budget for compensation to the current owners, but it is unlikely to be anything near the estimated auction value.

He would put money on it that she has no idea who the painting is by. He hears her voice, shy and oddly proprietorial: ‘She’s my favourite thing in this house. Actually, she’s my favourite thing in the whole world.’

Paul lets his head drop into his hands. He stays there until the office phone starts ringing.

The sun rises across the flatlands east of London, flooding the bedroom a pale gold. The walls glow briefly, the almost phosphorescent light bouncing off the white surfaces so that on another occasion Liv might have groaned, screwed her eyes shut and buried her head under her duvet. But she lies very still in the oversized bed, a large pillow behind her neck, and stares out at the morning, her eyes fixed blankly on the sky.

She’d got it all wrong.

She keeps seeing his face, hearing his scrupulously polite dismissal of her. Do you mind if I head off?

She has lain there for almost two hours, her mobile phone in her hand, wondering whether to text him a small message.

Are we okay? You seemed suddenly …

Sorry if I talked too much about David. It’s hard for me to remember that not everyone …

Really lovely to see you last night. Hope your work eases up soon. If you’re free on Sunday I’d …

What did I do wrong?

She sends none of them. She traces and retraces the stages of the conversation, going over each phrase, each sentence, meticulously, like an archaeologist sifting through bones. Was it at this point that he had changed his mind? Was there something she had done? Some sexual foible she hadn’t been aware of? Was it just being in the Glass House? A house that, while it had no longer held any of his belongings, was so palpably David that it might as well have had his image shot through it like lettering through a stick of rock? Had she misread Paul completely? Each time she considers these potential blunders, her stomach clenches with anxiety.

I liked him, she thinks. I really liked him.

Then, knowing sleep will not come, she climbs out of bed and pads downstairs to the kitchen. Her eyes are gritty with tiredness, the rest of her just hollowed out. She brews coffee and is sitting at the kitchen table, blowing on it, when the front door opens.

‘Forgot my security card. Can’t get into the care home without it at this time. Sorry – I was going to creep in so that I wouldn’t disturb you.’ Mo stops and peers past her, as if looking for someone. ‘So … What? Did you eat him?’