Once again, Viola returned from her walk to find a Land Rover parked in front of the farmstead – a different one, even more ancient than the vehicle driven by the Customs Officer. It had a dirty tarpaulin hood stretched across its open back.

Viola’s mother was not in her usual chair on the veranda, the sliding temperatures no bar to her habit of sitting outside. She had found a moth-eaten sheepskin coat, left behind in one of the bedroom wardrobes, and wrapped herself in that. A scarf twisted around her unwashed hair completed the look: a grandmother from a fairy tale.

The vacant veranda and the unfamiliar truck forced a sour uneasiness into Viola’s throat. She picked up her step towards the house.

‘Don’t you be going in there!’

The gruff voice made her jump, skid to a stop.

The Land Rover, parked in the shadows of the trees, had appeared empty, but as Viola wheeled around, twisting herself in Dot’s lead, she saw the gamekeeper, his white beard framed by the window of the cab. Last time they’d met, he had threatened trouble. Viola’s disquiet began to rise.

‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Because the doctor’s in there looking after her, isn’t he?’

His words tipped her into panic. Viola sprinted for the wooden steps, taking them two at a time, exploding through the front door, preparing herself for how her mother might have tried to do it. Their stash of paracetamol? Surely not a knife?

But in the kitchen, her mother was sitting upright, intact, rebuttoning her blouse, with no sign of disaster. At least, not the disaster Viola had anticipated. A barrel of a man in a formal navy suit tossed his stethoscope to the table, letting it snake across the top of Viola’s school books, then he leant in to finger the glands at Deborah Kendrick’s neck.

‘What’s going on? Are you sick?’ Viola demanded from the doorway, the adrenalin making her splutter.

Dot, picking up on the mood, gave a sharp, strangled yip.

The doctor turned, assessing Viola from behind his circular spectacles, a brief judgement, before going back to Deborah to boom out his conclusion.

‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you.’

‘But –’

Her mother was cut off by a short jeer of objection from the doctor. He retreated into the cushions of his chin, raising a solid finger. ‘There is absolutely no reason, Mrs Kendrick, why you shouldn’t be out there. In fact, some fresh air and hard work might do you good.’

‘But on my GP records,’ Deborah continued meekly, ‘you’ll see that I’ve been prone to iron deficiencies and –’