Jo Cooper waved the last of the guests off from the porch of her parents’ farmhouse. Once the car’s tail-lights had faded into the distance, she gazed at the bleak landscape on the other side of the lane. A low-lying mist lent a sinister atmosphere to the moorlands, and she shivered as she remembered the terror she had always felt whenever she’d had to walk home after dusk when she was younger; convinced that the twisted trees with their leafless, clawlike branches were going to come to life and drag her off the path.

The front door creaked open behind her, and Jo smiled as her father came out to join her. At sixty, Frank Peters was still a handsome man, but the dim bulb above their heads highlighted the silver strands in his once jet-black hair and deepened the shadows framing his kind grey eyes.

‘You look tired,’ she said, slipping her arm through his.

‘I am,’ he admitted. ‘It’s been a long day.’

‘Nice, though.’

‘Aye, it was,’ Frank agreed, gazing out into the gloom. ‘Looks like summer’s coming to an early end.’

‘You’re not kidding, it’s absolutely freezing,’ said Jo. ‘Let’s go back in and have a brew, eh?’

As her dad went back into the living room, where her brother, Evan, was lounging on the sofa in front of the open fire, Jo headed into the kitchen to make the drinks. Every surface of the usually orderly room was littered with used paper plates and plastic glasses, and the old oak table was covered with disposable silver trays bearing the remnants of curling sandwiches, half-eaten sausage rolls, and wilted salad from the buffet. Her mum’s apron, still dusty with flour from the last pie she’d baked, was hanging on the back of the door, and a wave of sadness washed over Jo when she realized she would never again taste her mother’s cooking, or share a pot of tea and a gossip with her over this table.

Determined not to start crying again, because it felt as if that was all she’d been doing for the last few weeks, Jo glanced at the clock hanging above the window. It was almost 9 p.m., and she bit her lip when she realized that she’d forgotten to ring her husband, Sam, to check that he and their five-year-old daughter had got home all right. This was the first night she had ever spent away from Emily and, even though she knew that Sam was more than capable of looking after her, she still felt guilty that she hadn’t been there to tuck her in.

Teas made, Jo carried them through to the living room. Evan smiled as he took his cup from her.

‘I was just saying, I reckon Mum would have been proud of the way Dad handled himself today. He did a belting job, didn’t he?’