Without another word, Edward started pulling saucepans out on the floor and then got down on hands and knees and stuck his head in the cupboard – an ostrich ritual he hadn’t displayed for a long time.

‘Come on out, Ed. There’s no need for that,’ said Giles firmly, pulling him out and then holding him, while Amy, her face expressionless, put the saucepans carefully back and shut the cupboard door. Rory burst into hysterical sobs and clutched Isobel round the knees.

‘I won’t go-o-o,’ he wailed. ‘I want to stay here with you. You promised I could have a guinea-pig! I won’t go!’

Sheena, arriving at this moment, made a welcome interruption in the hullabaloo and eventually she and Isobel managed to get both Rory and Edward out of the kitchen and up the stairs to change out of their wet clothes, though Rory’s pathetic wails could still be heard in the kitchen from the top of the house.

When Isobel eventually returned to start getting lunch, Amy and Louisa were laying the table and Giles was carving ham. Louisa thought Isobel looked terrible. Giles put his arm round her and she leaned against him for a moment.

‘Oh, Giles!’ she said, giving herself a little shake and pulling away from him. ‘That was even worse than I thought. Rory’s in a frightful state – it’s heart-rending. I’ve left Sheena reading him a story till lunchtime but he can’t stop crying. I don’t think I can bear it.’

‘And you can’t do it, either, Mum,’ said Amy fiercely. ‘You can’t possibly send him back to Aunt Lorna. He’s terrified of her. I know he is. Think of the effect she had on Ed.’

‘I have to send him, darling,’

‘You can’t. How can you be so cruel? She’ll wreck his life. Have you forgotten how she practically killed Ed? How she literally frightened him into fits and he nearly died?’

Isobel knew she could never forget the havoc her sister had once caused. She thought of Edward’s limp, unresponding little body after he’d run away from his aunt and been lost; of how the police had been talking of dragging the loch before he’d been discovered in the woods; of his subsequent regression back to the baby habits they’d worked so hard to overcome and of his terrifying two months of total silence before speech returned – these images could still cause her heart to pound and her mouth to go dry. ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten!’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t be silly, Amy.’

‘Then ring Aunt Lorna up and tell her you’re keeping him – or better still just don’t put him on the flight! Serve her right if she had to worry about him for a change!’ Amy glared at her mother.