‘Give me a break,’ he protests. ‘The problem is, when all the family come home we need the space. You’d hate it if we had to say “no” to any of them. There were sixteen of us last Christmas.’

‘Yes, I would,’ she admits. ‘I love it when they come.’ She chuckles. ‘And I love it when they go! Even so, we’re really going to miss Sam.’

‘So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?’ asks Hal. ‘I’m going to get some logs in.’

‘I shall do a bit in the garden,’ Fliss tells him. ‘Don’t forget that they’re bringing the dog to meet us this afternoon.’

‘How could I forget?’ asks Hal.

He’s looking forward to having another dog at The Keep. It’s been too long without one – more than a year – and the house needs a dog. As he walks along the slate-flagged passage to the garden room his thoughts slip back to Sam and he remembers Cara’s question: And was it a passion for you, too?

Hal still can’t find an answer to that question. His grandfather was killed at the Battle of Jutland and his own father’s destroyer was torpedoed with no survivors in the Second World War. Uncle Theo was a naval chaplain. Somehow joining the navy seemed the obvious thing to do and Hal’s never regretted it.

As he kicks off his shoes and thrusts his feet into his boots, he wonders, just briefly, whether Sam has ever thought that it’s somehow obligatory to follow in Mole’s footsteps; that it will help him come to terms with his father’s death. He knows what Fliss means about it being difficult to know what the lad is thinking, or to ask him a direct question. There’s something about Sam that makes you hold off, as if you’re invading his privacy. In some ways, just as Fliss reflects her grandmother’s personality, Sam reflects Mole’s. There’s strength there, but also a vulnerability.

Hal sighs. He wishes he were better at this: better at drawing Sam out and helping him when times were hard. He remembers how pleased he and Fliss were last year to have Sam home from China; how delighted they were to see him again after his year away, and how they knew at once that all was not well, that something was deeply troubling him. They could do nothing to help. Fliss was sure that it was about a girl and Hal trusted her instincts. Sam returned to Durham a few weeks later but though he talked about Shanghai, about how he loved teaching the children English, he never once spoke to them about the thing that seemed to be diminishing him, weighing him down. They both ached with the need to comfort him.

But at least, thinks Hal, he seems OK now.