Thick with dust and mouse droppings, crammed full of old furniture and reeking of damp, it was a part of the house largely untouched for years. Cleaning it had taken her all the rest of the day.

‘Used to have house staff up there when I first worked here.’ He set his glass down and went to close the stove flues, stepping carefully over Stubbs and the sleeping puppy. ‘Place had status.’

‘Another drink?’ She grasped the opportunity if Lester was going to wax lyrical.

But he shook his head. ‘Roads are going to be foggy later. You’ll need your wits.’

Pax watched enviously as he polished off his remaining Laphroaig, gathering the keys and his empty hunting flask from the table.

‘Almost forgot.’ Reaching in his pocket, he handed her a mobile phone. ‘Mrs Ledwell left this behind. Happy New Year.’

‘And to you, Lester. May it bring everything you wish for,’ she added over-effusively.

He fixed her with a scope-lamp stare she’d almost forgotten. ‘I want you back on a horse.’

‘We’ll see,’ she humoured, having no intention of getting back in the saddle.

‘Don’t let your parents’ talent go to waste. Your father rode the Wolf Moon Lap for you, you know that.’

‘I’d need all seven planets and Clair de Lune to get round again,’ she joked.

‘And I would give every star in the sky to see it.’ Lester’s voice crackled. ‘Good night to you.’ He limped off, poker-backed.

Retreating to the main house, Pax paced the kitchen, which was the only warm room, the Aga gurgling throatily, its rail festooned in her mother’s silk thermals. It was still hours until New Year, the airport run looming between her and one last night in her cups. She was dying for another drink, the almost-full whisky bottle like a golden trophy on the table as she marched around it, fiddle-footed. If she stood still, she thought about Mack threatening to stay in Scotland with Kes and emotion overwhelmed her. She had no desire to dwell on past lives while her son was being taken away from her.

Waking that morning, Pax had looked forward to being here on her own while the year she’d rather forget, and the week she couldn’t, slipped away. It would be the first time she’d spent a night in the house where she grew up since her late teens, and the first time she’d ever done so alone. She’d been planning to drink the whisky, listen to loud music and run from room to room, singing at the top of her voice, swan wings flapping and hissing, grateful for her own company, and to be granted a night away from the Mack Shack, from Mack, from marriage, from modern digital communication. But instead she must soberly chauffeur Stud Man or whatever he called himself, probably courteously see New Year in with him too, and she resented him like mad.

Without a drink, Pax was burning up with restless, heart-thumping loneliness.

She knew better than to impinge upon Lester’s routine. A creature of deeply entrenched habit, he would remain shut in his cosy cottage watching television after his evening meal of a Fray Bentos pie, then bathing before bed.