He was in the care of his brother and sister, though neither of his parents had expressly said this. It was simply taken for granted that if the children ran on ahead, and they always did run on ahead, Julian and Rachel would look after Silver. Afterward, neither of the older children remembered separating from him. They said they hadn’t taken their eyes off him, and then Rachel remembered the butterfly. She had seen it alight on the flower head of a purple thistle and called Julian over to look at it because she was interested in butterflies and this was one of a kind she had never seen before. It was quite large, a rich tangerine color with green underwings, patterned in black, and Silver, again researching, thought from his sister’s description that it must have been a Dark Green Fritillary. This is an insect that feeds on thistles and prefers coastal districts but it is quite rare, which would account for Rachel’s never having seen it before. Julian wasn’t much interested in Argynnis aglaia but he gave it a glance. He and Rachel said they took their eyes off Silver for maybe half a minute. The butterfly disliked their scrutiny and flew off and when they turned around their little brother had vanished.

He had been nowhere near the edge, they said. He had been with them, no more than a dozen yards from them, in the meadow that lay between the cliff path and the strip of woodland that separated it from the road. They and their parents ran in all directions calling him. First, of course, they went to the edge of the cliff. To reach it Silver would have had to get over or under a wire fence, admittedly flimsy, push through a dense mass of bilberry bushes and prickly gorse and brambles. But they looked over the edge, it was the first thing they did after shouting in vain, it was the natural thing, and there was nothing to be seen, no little figure lying face downward on the smooth yellow sand.