‘I don’t think so,’ I sigh, pleating my quilt between my fingers so I don’t have to meet her eyes. ‘I honestly don’t think I could bear it. Too many memories, and too many empty spaces.’

‘Don’t you miss it?’ Hayley presses. ‘The horses, the people, the physicality of it all – me?’

All I can do is sit there, muted as I am by a mixture of exasperation at the situation and frustration towards my own emotions. I was three years old when I first sat on a pony, six when I began taking regular lessons, and nineteen when I began teaching others to ride. For so many years, horses were my passion, my main reason for getting out of bed in the mornings. But now, since I lost my own beloved Suki alongside Anna in such horrifying circumstances, I can barely bring myself to think about them, because it hurts too much.

Hayley jumps as a scatter of rain hits the skylight above us. It has been raining a lot recently, a series of downpours stripping the last of the late autumn leaves from the trees. Soon the landscape will look as it did the day Anna died, and I have no idea how I will bear it; how I will stand to feel the icy wind against my cheeks, and the sight of snow on the ground. My world has become a minefield of reminders, and I am powerless to escape it.

Or am I?

‘I’m sorry,’ Hayley says, looking from the skylight back to me, and I know how impotent those words must feel to her.

‘Do you remember how we used to talk about going backpacking together?’ I say then, noting her look of relief at the change of subject. ‘We had that map stuck up on the wall at the yard, and we used to plan our route while we cleaned all the tack.’

‘Of course I remember that,’ she says. ‘We ended up spending all the money we’d saved on those dressage saddles instead, didn’t we? I left mine over Magnum’s stable door and he chewed a hole in it, the cheeky beggar.’

I chuckle.

‘Why do you mention that now, anyway?’ she enquires, sliding a finger inside her thermal sock to scratch her foot. ‘Are you planning on taking a gap year a decade too late or something?’

‘Not exactly,’ I begin. ‘But there is something about this Bonnie woman that I haven’t told you yet.’

‘Oh?’ Hayley lets go of her foot and gives me her full attention.

‘She doesn’t live here in England,’ I tell her, pausing while Hayley takes this in. ‘If I really want to find her, then I’m going to have to travel much, much further away.’

Thoroughly intrigued now, Hayley scoots along the bed until half her bottom is resting on my toes.

‘How far are we talking?’