She led them into the corridor and towards the stairs, Pip following cautiously in her wake. Where were they going? For the briefest of moments, Pip worried for her own safety, but what could Evelyn do to her? She was so frail, and Pip was young and fit, and anyway, why would she want to hurt her? What Pip had done was awful, but it didn’t impact on Evelyn.

Evelyn started up the stairs. She had to pick her way through the debris that was waiting on either side of the treads, things that must have been left there to be carried upstairs and then ignored and added to until the path through became narrow and treacherous.

Upstairs Pip saw the door to the room that Evelyn must have been in when she had seen her at the window, but Evelyn didn’t take them in there, choosing instead the door to a room at the back of the house.

Evelyn paused slightly before putting her hand out and pushing the handle down. The door swung open, and Pip’s heart fell still in her chest. The room was painted in a delicate pink. In the centre was a bed with posts attached to each corner, also painted pink, and over which white organza had been draped. A multitude of teddy bears and other unlikely creatures were resting on the pillow, each carefully placed as if they were having a conversation amongst themselves.

On the floor between the bed and the window was a single sock, white with the little embroidered pattern running up it that Pip remembered from her own childhood. It lay where it had been dropped decades before, slightly balled and without its partner. Pip didn’t think she had ever seen anything so poignant.

‘This is Scarlet’s room,’ said Evelyn, although the explanation was not required. ‘This is how she left it the day she died. It’s not a shrine to her memory, not like I imagine some people keep for their dead children. I leave it like this because it’s the last place on earth where a part of her still lives. When I come in here, I can feel her with me. Does that sound peculiar?’

Pip shook her head. She didn’t trust her voice not to let her down if she spoke.

‘My sister wanted to clear everything away after Scarlet died,’ Evelyn continued. ‘She said it was unhealthy to keep it all like this, to dwell on what was passed, but I wouldn’t let her. I’m so glad now that I held firm and stood my ground on that.’

Evelyn crossed the room and looked out at the gardens beyond.