‘I knew it!’ The grief on Claire’s face is as fresh as that first night. ‘Where? Where did they find him?’

‘Alive, Claire. He’s been found alive.’

Claire covers her face with her hands. From the kitchen comes the sound of the kettle boiling, of cupboards opening as Hagen searches for clean mugs.

‘Claire?’ Naylor asks gently. She leans forwards and touches Claire’s knee.

Claire jumps up from the sofa and runs to the downstairs cloakroom, where Naylor can’t help but hear her throwing up.

Glorious mid-summer, mid-afternoon. Curlews are wheeling and calling across the fell, and the breeze bending the cotton grass carries the peaty scent of bracken, and the bleating of the ewes and lambs in the home field. When Jack reaches the house, Dora’s fallen asleep in the deckchair on the lawn, her reading glasses and newspaper folded in her lap. He thinks that he should wake her or she’ll never sleep tonight, but as he’s about to touch her shoulder, through the French doors he hears the phone ring.

Drowsy flies are buzzing in the hall. Out of recent habit, before he answers the phone Jack touches the photograph of himself and Evan, a talismanic gesture and a small prayer.

He picks up the receiver and says hello.

‘Dad.’ Jack becomes very still. Every time Matt phones, Jack fears bad news, the final snuffing of his fading hope. But this evening Matt’s voice is different, lighter and brighter than it’s been in a long time. ‘Are you there, Dad?’

Jack clears his throat.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ he says, all bluff. ‘You’re lucky to catch me. I’ve only just come in.’

‘You might want to sit down, Dad,’ says Matt. ‘I’ve got some news. Good news, though. Brilliant news, actually. It’s Evan, Dad. Evan’s been found.’

Jack isn’t sure whether the buzzing he can hear is the flies, or if it’s only in his ears. He looks down at the photograph by the phone, at the little boy beaming at his jar of sticklebacks, at a younger, carefree version of himself.

And he dare not ask the question that leaps to mind: dead or alive?

‘They had him in a car, in Ferrybridge. Where the power station is,’ Matt is saying. ‘Christ knows why there. They’ve taken him to hospital, but they say he’s fine.’ There’s a beat of silence between them, unwanted acknowledgement of the unlikelihood of Evan being fine. ‘The police are driving Claire up, and I’m meeting her there. We just wanted you to be the first to know. Dad? Are you there, Dad?’

Warm tears are running down Jack’s face.

‘I’m here,’ he manages to say. ‘Thank God.’