‘You were in love? When you were in the US?’ A memory of hearing about his accident filters in – the call from Mum saying he may never walk again.

He nods. ‘It was pretty serious. Almost meet the parents time.’

‘Really?’ I feel a lump rise in my throat. My little brother in love, and it all slipped away from him. ‘So where is she now?’

‘Back in the US. She was a TV presenter, doing well.’ He smiles. ‘I follow her on Twitter with a fake name, in a non-stalker kind of way.’

‘Sounds pretty stalker-like to me.’ I half smile. ‘So you’re not in touch?’

He shakes his head, and looks down at his hands. ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’

‘It was true love then?’

He shrugs. ‘I never told her about the accident.’

‘What? Why not?’

‘She would have stood by me, and it would have ruined her life, or worse, she may have taken off – deserted me. I couldn’t live with either scenario. I called her from the hospital, told her it was over, that I was heading back to the UK.’

I grab his hand and squeeze it. ‘Oh, Thomas, I’m so sorry.’

‘I didn’t deserve her, sis. I was drunk at that party, and I took a bloody car out on a racing track.’

‘But those idiot so-called friends encouraged you – handed you the keys to the car, let you into the racetrack.’

‘And I got behind the wheel and turned the key,’ he says. ‘I can only blame myself.’

I sigh deeply. ‘Still. You should call her.’

‘That’s what Maddie says.’

I ignore a pang of envy that he told Maddie before me.

‘Maybe I will if we get out of here. These kinds of things have a habit of making you evaluate your life.’

The front door slams open, and we look up.

It’s Dad. He’s carrying Maddie in his arms, and, leaving the door wide open, he limps across the room, his face distorted. He lays her on the floor by the fire. ‘She’s alive – just about. Concussed, I think.’

‘Jeez, what happened?’ Thomas cries, and makes an automatic attempt to rise, and I see the frustration in his face when he can’t.

‘All I know is there’s blood on her head,’ Dad says. ‘Finn said earlier branches are falling. It could be what’s happened, but with everything else … well, I just don’t know.’

‘You think someone attacked her?’ I drop to my knees, and put a cushion under Maddie’s head, blood from an open wound coating my fingers.

Dad shrugs. ‘I couldn’t find her when I went out there. I was worried she could have been taken, you know, like Elise, so I took off looking for her.’

‘You should have told us,’ I say. ‘You shouldn’t have gone off on your own.’