‘Not likely,’ Joan said. ‘Mum can’t take a few days off work. I have to go to the holiday club again, which is boring and stupid and you have to join in all the games and activities. Even if you bring your own book. They don’t even let you go for a walk.’

‘Well, this year will be different,’ Leanne said, getting up to give her daughter a hug. ‘I’ll book some time off, and we can look for somewhere nice to go on holiday.’

‘We don’t have enough money to go on holiday,’ Joan mumbled into Leanne’s arm.

‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll work something out. If it comes down to it, we’ll just have to rough it like Ollie.’

‘You roughing it is about as likely to happen as you taking time off.’

‘Hey, I’ve done enough camping in my time!’

‘Really, when?’ Joan pulled back so she could look at her mum.

Leanne instantly stiffened, looking away as she shrugged off the question. ‘As a kid.’

‘With your parents? My grandparents? Did they like camping?’

‘Yes. Now, look at the time. If you want to finish another chapter this evening, best get yourself into bed.’

‘But—’

‘Go on, bedtime.’

I might have dared to ask Leanne more about that – why a woman would choose to run to the middle of nowhere, where she had no home, no support network, nothing, rather than reaching out to her parents for help. Did they know where Leanne was? Did they even know they had a grandchild? Maybe they didn’t deserve to know, or perhaps for one reason or another, they didn’t care. They might have died, leaving Leanne no option but to press on without them.

Or were they somewhere hoping, praying that one day their daughter would come home?

Sunday morning:

Pitching a tent will do even more damage to the grass than your dog using it as a toilet.

Ebenezer had stapled a list of local campsites printed off the internet to the note. He’d circled a couple and written dog-friendly next to them. After a twenty-minute wrestling match trying to fold the tent back down, I’d decided that leaving it up all night would be a good test of its durability, and whether my pitching skills were adequate.

It was now zipped back in its bag and sitting perfectly positioned on my kitchen doorstep. I was itching to take the ten steps to Ebenezer’s back door. Maybe it was only when people knocked at the front that he was so rude? But I had nothing more to say other than ‘Hello’, and ‘I’m sorry for continually sabotaging your incredible gardening,’ and ‘Are you some sort of wizard because how else could you manage to string washing lines and build wooden shelters and keep this garden immaculate while remaining completely invisible?’