Jack stopped in his tracks. Shit! He’d just watched his interviewee drive away.

He sat down on one of the benches and got out his mobile to check the time; just gone midday. He opened Google Maps, typed in his Aunt Fran’s address and discovered that she was no more than a twenty-minute taxi ride straight up the M5, in Burnham-on-Sea. Jack requested his Uber and waited.

He looked across at the Blackdown Hills and remembered how he and Charlie had walked the hills when he was in his early teens. Of course, they’d walked the Exmouth end, where the hills met the south coast, so all of this part was, in fact, completely new to him. But it felt the same.

Even though Dartmoor National Park had been right on their doorstep in Totnes, Charlie liked Jack to explore different places and see different things.

“Everywhere and everyone has its own beauty, Jack,” Charlie would say. “You gotta find your spot.”

Charlie loved the Blackdown Hills, because they had a tranquility to them, whereas Jack always preferred the rugged, unpredictable wildness of Dartmoor. But, right at this moment, he loved these hills and the memories they held, and he didn’t want to leave.

Chapter 11

Frances Stanley didn’t recognize Jack when she opened her front door to him; she’d only ever seen him as a small boy, not this impressive-looking young man who stood in front of her now. As she looked at him, not knowing who he was, she thought he dressed younger than his years, but that he carried it off perfectly—he was too smart to be selling something, too casual to be a copper, too young to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Fran simply stared, unable to guess who Jack was or what he wanted.

“Aunt Fran? It’s Jack.”

He would have liked his Aunt Fran’s face to instinctively relax at this point, to smile and to seem pleased to see him, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Fran’s face tensed, and it was only when she realized she must be coming across as cold and hard that she forced a smile.

“Jack, lad! Come in. Come in.” They gave each other an awkward hug as he passed her and entered the hallway. “Why didn’t you say you were coming? I’ve not tidied. And, look at me! I’m in my scruffs.”

“It was a last-minute thing, sorry. I didn’t know I was going to be in the area until it was too late to let you know.”

Fran led the way into the kitchen, where she set about making some tea and searching for biscuits. She had to wash mugs from the overflowing sink as there were no clean ones. She rinsed them under the cold water and rubbed the inside with her fingers until the old tea stains had gone; then she dried them on a dirty, part-burnt tea towel that was obviously also used to take things out of the oven. When Fran opened the fridge to get the milk, a waft of onions filled the room and Jack just knew that the milk would taste of the same smell. He couldn’t take his eyes off Fran. Her hair was dry and brittle from years of perming and bleaching. Her face was weather-worn, leathery, with smoker’s wrinkles round her mouth.