‘It’s habit. Ursula braided it too, but not tightly. And then I put it up of course, as I got older. But mostly I simply can’t be bothered with it. I have more important things to be thinking about than hairpins. And the fashion is for sleek hair, and little pin curls, and mine will never behave like that. I’m a lost cause.’

‘Will you let me brush it?’

‘You?’

‘To get rid of the tangles. I’ve never brushed anyone’s hair but my own, but we are going to have to do something before Friday.’

‘Perhaps I should go out now and find a hairdresser who can chop it all off. I’m sure people think I should be able to forget about that horrible woman. That I should just put it all aside and go on with my life.’

He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t dare.’

Ann spun round and pointed an accusatory finger at him. ‘Don’t you understand? She is here. Here in this house, every day. It’s not something to laugh about. There’s not a single day that she isn’t in my head. All her nasty comments and snide remarks. And as I get older it’s getting worse because with every day that passes I look more and more like her.’ She smashed her hairbrush down on the dressing table. ‘I cannot escape her.’

Keith knew he needed to say something, and quickly. ‘Does Isobel know you feel like this?’

‘I haven’t said anything to her. It’s not anyone else’s problem but mine.’ She waved her hand towards the front of the house. ‘I talk to myself about it all sometimes, when I’m up on Blackford Hill and no one can hear me. I practise what I would say to my mother now, if she were here. But she isn’t, so it’s pointless. It doesn’t change anything.’ Ann looked out of the window, trying to focus on the bird table, where a house sparrow with a twisted foot was pecking at an apple core that had been put out that morning. ‘I look at the birds outside, and that helps. They are all slightly different so I try to work out exactly which one of them I’m seeing and it gives me something else to think about.’ She paused. ‘I wasn’t joking about moving house, you know? For a while, after Ursula died, I really did think that if I moved, it would be better. I even got as far as looking at other places. I went on trips to Linlithgow, and Glasgow, and Perth. And I was shown new properties, just built. Houses without any ghosts.’

‘And did it help?’

‘It did not.’ She sighed. ‘So I am stuck with her.’

‘I’m sure—’