They rounded the bend beneath the rise, from where she knew she had glimpsed Arden out of the taxi. She saw trees snagging at the blue, but between them a sudden shock: where the crouching shape of the hospital had stood before, there was nothing now but the naked sky.

‘It’s gone!’ she cried. ‘They’ve already done it!’

‘What’s gone?’ Elly peered through the windscreen.

‘There was a building there – on the hill.’ Anna pointed. Still hardly believing it, she went on, ‘And now it’s not there.’

‘Why?’ Elly frowned. ‘Did somebody steal it? A stranger?’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Several strangers, I should think. And some machines.’ She felt desolate. It had felt important to come back here. ‘Oh, well. Can’t show you now then, can I?’

‘Never mind,’ Jake said. ‘I’ll have to try and imagine.’

The stone arch at the entrance to Arden was, however, still standing, a large green and white sign next to it announcing the name of the demolition company. The arch was too narrow for the bulldozers and they had cleared a way in through the boundary fence, leaving a gash of crushed bushes and white, snapped twigs. Their tracks had mashed deep ruts along the drive, the surface churned aside and now frozen hard, still white with ice behind the broken shadows of the trees.

They left the van just inside the entrance and jumped down. Anna was disorientated. ‘I was here four months ago,’ she calculated as they reached into the back of the van for the picnic bags. ‘I suppose it was obvious they were going to do it soon, but I still can’t believe it’s just gone completely. I thought it would take them longer.’

‘Not once they get going,’ Jake said.

They picked their way along the rough path, Anna and Jake each carrying a bag and Jake with a rug draped over one shoulder. ‘Mind how you go,’ he called to Elly, who was skipping ahead in blue wellies. ‘Hold my hand or you could twist your ankle. It’s rough here.’

‘I want to hold Anna’s hand,’ she said. Anna felt the woolly fingers grasp hers and was flattered to be chosen. Elly looked up at her, eyes huge and grey like Jake’s. ‘You’re Daddy’s girlfriend, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Anna said solemnly. ‘Is that all right with you?’

‘Oh yes,’ Elly said. ‘I think that’s all right – so far.’

‘Thank you,’ Anna said. She and Jake laughed together, their breath misting the air.

‘You look like dragons,’ Elly said, puffing a breath out herself and laughing too. Jake came and put his free arm round Anna’s shoulders.

As they walked round the final bend of the drive Anna found herself feeling nervous, as she had the first time she was there. She had expected something to remain: bricks, plastic tape, skips: something of the paraphernalia of demolition. But there was nothing. The site had been cleared with great thoroughness, the rubble carted away, the ground bulldozed and flattened, so that the only thing now visible was the long area of earth frozen iron hard.