‘No problem.’ He raises his gloved hand in a wave, before turning and trudging back, his head down.

Dad and I carry on towards our cottage.

‘I was getting worried about you,’ he says. ‘Though I shouldn’t have been. Finn seems a nice guy.’

‘Get that look off your face, Dad. He’s not my type.’ It’s a lie. I like him. But a relationship, or even a brief fling, is the furthest thing from my thoughts right now, especially when a possessive mother looms large. I open my mouth to tell him about the footprints, but he speaks first.

‘Odd that Rosamund is here, don’t you think?’

I nod. ‘She says she needs closure, Dad. Wants us all to forgive her for not being there for Mum.’

‘Oh, I see. Well she won’t be getting any forgiveness from me, that’s for sure.’

I glance over my shoulder at the footprints, and back at Dad. He looks brighter than he did earlier. Any mention of anything odd will bring him tumbling down, and his thoughts will be back with Lark. I need to give him at least the rest of the evening off. I’ll tell him in the morning.

*

I rise at six, and pad towards the bedroom window. My head thuds, my mouth is dry, and regrets fill my head at the things I said to Finn last night.

I pull back the curtains. It’s still dark outside, but the lights on Rosamund’s porch are on, haloing Elise crouched with her back to me in front of a rather splendid-looking snowman. She’s clearly still a fan of pink; the hat she’s wearing is the same one she wore on the beach a year ago, but the pink jacket is paler – more grown-up – and her fair hair is longer, several inches peeking out of the bottom of her woolly hat. As she rises and pushes a carrot into the snowman’s head, I see she’s taller, no longer a child but a young woman.

Unbidden memories flood my head of playing in the snow with Mum and Dad when I was a child, and my throat closes round them. I turn from the window, and shiver. It’s not cold in the cottage. The central heating is on and, if anything, it’s too warm. It’s the simple thought of being here again – where Lark disappeared – where we were all last together.

I close the curtains again. I need water – lots of water – and head downstairs, where I gulp back a tumbler full, and flick on the kettle. I hear Dad’s footfalls on the stairs, and make him some coffee, and myself some tea, and leave the kitchen.

He’s sitting on the sofa, and I place the steaming mug on the table in front of him. ‘Thanks, love,’ he says, as I kiss his head.