The river was flowing fast from the recent downpours, its surface silvered from the pace of the water. If you shut your eyes, it sounded like the swish of an unseen motorway. The path was muddy, the rocks at the water’s edge stained dark with the rain.

‘We don’t actually own these fields any more, but we’re still allowed to walk here. We used to bring Stephen down here to swim, the summer he was here. There was a rope we all used to swing on, over that pool there.’ Georgie pointed. ‘The branch came down a few years ago.’

‘Yeah, I was hoping you’d tell me about him. How he was when he was here.’

Georgie felt acutely aware that whatever she said, it wouldn’t be enough. The few memories she’d be able to summon would just be tiny flakes of gold, when what this woman wanted was ingots, bullion, bars. For Hazel, Stephen’s absence must represent something enormous: a disappearance that had shaped her whole life. Whereas, to Georgie, his loss was a little sharp splinter of regret. It glinted sometimes in the light of memory, but nothing more.

The apprehension of this made her feel somehow ashamed. Georgie wanted to be kind, wanted to supply anything which might make things easier for this woman. Wasn’t there someone in a Greek myth, who’d been able to spin gold out of her stories? Or was it in a fairy tale? If she willed herself, perhaps she could call up enough fragments from that summer to construct something like a charm bracelet. The two women walked along the riverbank, and she tried.

Cass had made soup and a salad for lunch. Hazel was looking forward to some time on her own, to digest what Georgie had told her. She thought she’d write down some of the things she’d heard, while they were still fresh in her mind. She and Dawn were going to drive down to look at the shops in Falmouth, get a breath of sea air and have a Cornish cream tea. Find some little gifts to take back for family.

Hazel had offered to take them all out on the second night, but Cass insisted that she would cook. When the two of them appeared at the farm for supper, Georgie offered to take Hazel up to see the room where Stephen had stayed.

‘You don’t mind, do you Cass?’ she’d asked.

‘Of course not. Actually, I’ll come up with you.’

‘It’s the same room my son used, when he was little. The bed is French, I think. Is it walnut, Cass?’

‘I think so, yes. Or is it pear? Nice wood, in any case, not too dark. It would’ve been here when Stephen was staying. And the blue curtains are the same, I’m ashamed to say. Look at them, completely threadbare.’