Exhausted, I held my sides and staggered on, too tired to run now. No cars in the drive. So either Hugo planned to carry the food back, or take the Land Rover, perhaps? Yes, that's what he'd do. Walk up, and take the Land Rover back. I found second wind to jump up the steps and push the front door, which was on the latch. Truffle padded down from the kitchen, old tail wagging slowly, but, other than that, the house was still and quiet, just the familiar ticking of the long-case clock. I flew down the passage and through the green baize door to the kitchen. Sure enough, signs of fridge and freezer raiding were evident. Large white polystyrene trays from the butchers had been discarded, with torn bits of cellophane, as Hugo no doubt decanted the whole lot into — I crouched to the cupboard below — ah yes. The large Aga pans had gone. OK, so was he still toing and froing, back and forth to a car in the yard? I glanced out of the kitchen window which looked on to the stable yard but couldn't see any sign of him.

On an impulse, I decided to search the rest of the house. I raced around downstairs, throwing one door open after another and spinning about. Empty. Empty, empty, empty. Finally, the living room, whose huge double doors I threw wide. No one there. I fled upstairs. Taking the stairs two at a time, past the — we now know — bogus ancestral portraits, I tried all the rooms off the landing, four or five, and mostly spare. Nothing. Then down the corridor to Hugo and Christina's bedroom, which ratcheted up my anxiety levels, but thankfully, was empty, and very tidy, as was their bathroom. Roger and Belinda's room, right at the end, vast and with windows on three sides, was equally immaculate. Obviously it was Belinda's room really, since Roger slept in his dressing room, and it was a long time since I'd been in here; in her inner sanctum. It gave me a jolt to see all the photos and paintings of Hugo on the walls.

I remembered that first Christmas morning, when we'd been bidden to assemble in here and open our stockings with Roger and Belinda — in our pajamas on the bed. Peter too, of course, a tiny baby. I'd perched on the very end of the bed, where Belinda had indicated. Belinda had sat in regal splendor, propped up on lacy pillows; Roger, in his paisley bathrobe, dapper and groomed, was in a chair; but Hugo got in beside her. I'd found it breathtaking. In bed with his Mummy. And all those portraits, looking back at him, on the walls. I'd left in a state of shock, and even Mum, who tried to think the best of every Bellingdon foible, and would reassure me they were perfectly normal, had listened with eyes like dinner plates. But hadn't said a word.