Sam Chadwick walks through the lanes, away from The Keep towards the bus stop at Shinners Bridge. When Hal and Fliss heard of his plan to visit his godfather in Salcombe there was the usual discussion about how he should get there. He’s decided not to take his own car this time, nor to accept Hal’s offer of a lift, but to catch the bus. As he strides along, shouldering his backpack, he considers his motives for visiting Salcombe. Since finishing uni he’s been battling a sense of confusion and a real anxiety about his future. Once, way back when he was little, a small friend said to him: ‘You’re an orphan.’ Even now he can recall his sense of surprise. After all, he had Hal and Fliss, and, most importantly, Lizzie. When he came to live at The Keep he was three years old and Lizzie was the closest, dearest person in his life. His father was dead – he’d died a few months before Sam was born – and if he’s completely honest with himself he can’t really remember his mother. He knows that in his early years Lizzie helped his mum to bring him up and that it was Lizzie who decided that he should come to his nearest relations at The Keep after his mother died. In the years that followed, Lizzie almost replaced her, almost became his mother. Of course, there was Fliss, his dad’s older sister, and Hal, and they were very happy to welcome Sam into the family, but Lizzie stayed on, too, so that there would be that necessary continuity for the small Sam. It’s been Lizzie who has gradually revealed his own story: how his mum and Mole weren’t married, although marriage was a probability. How, after Mole was murdered, she hadn’t had the courage to turn up at The Keep with his baby. It was only after his mother died that the three-year-old Sam finally met his family at The Keep.

Eighteen years on, Sam can see how lucky he was that Lizzie was prepared to stay on with him in his new home. She was his link back to his mother and to his past. Also, importantly, she was young. When she took him to the little village school, and picked him up, she looked like all the other young mums at the school gate. It was hard to be called an orphan but somehow Lizzie bridged the gap and gave him security and he didn’t feel like an orphan. The Chadwicks were a large, close-knit clan, and very soon he began to be a part of it.