The apartment smelled of home.
Not the generic home smell of air freshener and central heating. The specific, irreplaceable smell of Emma Hartley cooking.
Garlic browning in olive oil. Tomatoes reducing with basil and a pinch of sugar. Fresh bread warming in the oven.
The scent that had defined every flat, every kitchen, every evening we had shared since the tiny one-bedroom in Croydon where she had first taken over the stove and told me to sit down and stop pretending I knew the difference between oregano and thyme.
That was eighteen months ago. She had moved in with me when I got the U18s job, leaving her flat in Chorlton, leaving Manchester, leaving the blog and the non-league circuit and the Sunday league managers who bought her coffees at cafés in Bury.
