There’s a beat before my thoughts become words. ‘You’re going away?’ I rub my temples. I don’t want to go home right now. I want to stay here with him. I meet his eyes, knowing he feels awful. ‘Oh God, I shouldn’t have turned up unannounced. I just wanted to surprise you, that’s all.’ It wasn’t strictly true. I needed him. Desperately.

‘Don’t be daft. I’m thrilled to see you, love. But—’

‘I should have called you first.’ Despite him telling me each time we spoke on the phone that he keeps busy, that he’d even joined the local ornithologists, that he’d started acting again, I still imagined him sitting at home broken – like me. And truth is, I know he is broken. He’s just better at plastering over the cracks than I am.

‘You can stay here, Amelia,’ he says. ‘I’m only away for a week, and once I’m back, we can—’

‘No. No it’s fine.’ I rise. Annoyed. Not with him, but with myself. Rattled that I assumed he would be here waiting for me, his life on pause.

‘Sit,’ he says. ‘I’m not leaving for half an hour, and I’m all packed. We have lots to catch up on.’

I lower myself back down. ‘So where are you off to?’ I say, diverting the conversation into unknown territory.

‘Well, that’s the thing.’ He avoids meeting my eyes as he runs a finger over his moustache. ‘I’m hoping you’ll understand why I didn’t tell you.’

‘Didn’t tell me?’ My body tenses.

‘I’ll be staying at Drummondale House.’

‘What?’ It came out high-pitched. ‘Why?’

‘Lark disappeared a year ago this week,’ he says.

‘Christ, Dad. Don’t you think I know that?’

He covers my hand with his. ‘I know you know that, love. I’m not trying to upset you.’

‘But why didn’t you invite me to come with you?’ I’m hurt, upset. I pull my hand from under his, lean back, and cross my arms over my chest, knowing I’m being defensive. ‘At least mention it?’

‘Because … because I didn’t think you would cope with it, Amelia. You’ve been so up and down over the last year. I thought it would be too much. I didn’t mean to deceive you. I wanted to protect you.’

He’s right. I’ve been so unstable. ‘But I still don’t get why you would go back to that place.’

His chest rises and falls as he takes a deep breath. ‘Inspector Beynon may have given up hope of finding Lark, but I haven’t. I need to check we didn’t miss anything. Something that could lead us to her.’

‘After all this time?’

He raises his eyes to the ceiling, tears glistening. ‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It just feels right somehow.’