Her tears had begun now, and she bent down to scoop up a handful of the scorched earth and put it in her pocket. Then she stumbled away from the ridge, slipping on the steep path, clutching at dry, thorny branches to prevent herself from falling. When she reached the car she felt the first drops of rain. The clouds had bunched together, and a flicker of pink lightning sliced the sky. There was a growl of thunder as she drove down the escarpment, the vehicle lurching on the rough terrain, sliding perilously close to the edge of the cliff from which the track had been carved. The trees loomed dark and gaunt in the torrent of water that rattled the windscreen. Within a few minutes she was skidding across the road, driving as fast she dared to avoid being sucked down into the mud. Once she had to climb out into the downpour and push some brushwood under her tyres, holding her breath as they spun and slid before gaining purchase. When she finally reached the house she was drenched and spattered with mud.

‘Sarah! Where have you been? I was about to start out looking for you!’ Lars took her by the arm. ‘I thought you might be bogged down somewhere. We’re in for a stormy evening, that’s certain. There’s been a phone call for you. Hannah will tell you. Hurry up and get into some dry clothes.’

‘A phone call?’

‘Later, or you’ll catch cold.’

When she had showered and put on trousers and a sweater she returned to the sitting room. Hannah was standing by the fire, but she did not respond to Sarah’s smile.

‘I was frantic when the rain started,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know where you’d gone, and I was afraid you’d be stuck somewhere for the night.’

‘I thought I’d drive around and look for some game. Take a few pictures,’ Sarah said. ‘Who phoned for me?’

‘It was George Broughton-Smith,’ Hannah’s face was forbidding. ‘I told him you weren’t here. He wanted to come and see you. See us both. But I told him no. I don’t want him here, not now or any time. So if you want to see him, it will have to be somewhere else.’

‘Did he say anything about Camilla?’

‘I didn’t stay on the line long enough to find out. He’d heard about what happened here. It was in the papers in England, so she must know too. But she never wrote or even picked up the telephone.’

‘Did he leave a number?’

‘No.’ Hannah was looking into the fire, her fists clenched at her sides.