He found it by accident. He hadn’t been looking for anything—he was clearing the kitchen table of the week’s accumulated clutter when a torn envelope slipped out from under a stack of unopened post. The return address was a flat in Lewisham. No name. The envelope was empty, the letter presumably somewhere else, but he stood there holding it for a moment before setting it aside. He forgot about it by the evening.
What he didn’t forget was a phone call he overheard three days later. He was coming downstairs when he heard Zoe’s voice from the kitchen, low and controlled: “I know, I understand—yes, I’ve kept them all—no, he doesn’t know.” A pause. Then: “I will. I’ll call you if anything changes.” He stopped on the landing.
By the time he reached the kitchen, she was off the phone, filling the kettle, and she turned and smiled at him and asked if he wanted tea. He said yes. He sat down at the table, and she made two cups. They talked about something else entirely, and he told himself that she would have told him, if there was anything to worry about.