The words would come. Tara had spent enough hours with clients struggling to make sense of Longhampton’s freak floods to know that the experience loomed over its victims like an iceberg: too big to see all at once, too unexpected to explain away as ‘just one of those things’. They’d been the worst floods in local memory – the most destructive, the most disruptive – and had to be broken down into small, easily comprehensible chunks of shock. A bloated sofa floating in water spangled with red and blue emergency lights. A policeman in waders on the doorstep, insisting the family evacuate now. A carpet, newly laid for Christmas, filthy with slime and human waste and God knew what from the swollen river that had risen and risen, and then covered half of the county in a muddy blanket.

Eventually, Grace spoke. ‘I didn’t realize until the water was already coming up the stairs.’ She stared ahead, at Tara’s peace lily. ‘My little boy, Harrison, he went downstairs to get a drink and he come running straight back up. “Mummy, Mummy, there’s water in the house.” And when I looked over the banisters, the cushions from the sofa were in the hall. I thought, why are they there? Then I realized – they were floating.’ She pulled a tissue from the box and started plucking it. ‘I didn’t know what to do. All I could think of was the guinea pigs. Harrison’s guinea pigs in their cage by the washing machine. Fluff and Peppa.’ Her hand covered her mouth, suppressing a sob. Above it, her eyes blurred, as the scene played back in her mind. ‘Sorry. Sorry …’

Tara made a soothing noise. ‘It’s OK, Grace. Take your time.’

‘I think it was worse that it happened in the night? The electricity had gone off and I didn’t know – there were lights downstairs but it was the fire brigade on the river, getting Mrs Brody from next door out. She’s in a wheelchair. They had to lift her on to the wall, you know where I mean? By the bridge?’

Tara nodded. She knew exactly where Grace’s house was: it was on a pretty terrace near the town centre. Whitewashed frontages with red roses climbing around shiny black doors – and about a metre above the normal level of the River Martle. But the River Martle hadn’t been at a normal level recently. For three days, it had been on a level with the fan extractor on Grace Jordan’s kitchen hob.

‘But they got you and Harrison out safely?’

Grace blew her nose. ‘The firemen in the dinghy came and Harrison jumped in, but I couldn’t move. I kept thinking, what do I save? Dad’s ashes were in the lounge, and I wanted to go back for them, but the fireman grabbed me. He said the river was still rising and there was gas …’