Joe kept sociable hours for the most part. At times he was able to see the boys off to school and be home for their dinner. Both boys were at crucial stages in their education. At fourteen, Connor had just chosen his GCSE options and, at that age, it seemed like those few momentary decisions would dictate the rest of his life.

‘Nothing is set in stone,’ Joe reassured his son, but it fell on deaf ears. Connor was a worrier.

‘But what if history clashes with art?’

Everything with Connor was fatalistic and he was the family’s pessimist. On the other hand, Callum, who was embarking on his first year of A-levels, was the family’s horizontal barometer. His was the ‘slide and see’ method of future planning and preparation. He’d chosen design and science based topics for GCSE and now he was trying his hand at business. Not that he was business minded. Indeed the opposite was true: Callum was a philanthropist (albeit an armchair one) and the cut-throat world of economics and world corporatism was a millions miles away from his altruistic ideals. Still, he understood the importance of earning, and every company in the world needed an accountant.

Joe let it go. It was Annie who was constantly on their backs. Joe’s wasn’t a grand wage, and Annie essentially paid the bills. She was a HR boss at the Penrith and Lakes Hospital and it was her income that supported them. As Joe rolled out of bed, pulled on a sweater and jogging pants and cooked himself eggs, Annie had already made sure that the boys knew their schedule for the day, fixed her packed lunch, made breakfast, cleared away, put a load of washing on, and left on time for work. Connor had revision sessions at school until gone five this evening, and Callum was trying a taster session at the new climbing wall in Keswick. Both boys went to school in the town and Annie dropped them off each morning, at the end of the long farm track, to catch the one school bus.

Annie’s seniority at the hospital meant that she could take advantage of her position and enquire about the woman they’d found at Castlerigg. It was the main topic of gossip at the Penrith and Lakes this week. The woman – who seemed more like a child – had vanished, and concerns for her wellbeing were mounting. Annie knew before the press and had called Joe to tell him. Her husband seemed still to be in shock and she put it down to his gentle nature.