Rob had loved the place since they were children and used to drag their group over to play in the garden back in the days when it was owned by the absent granddaughter of an American tobacco merchant who’d built on the land well before the planners had any say over who and what could ruin the natural beauty of a place. She once made the mistake of telling him it gave her the creeps, so he’d dared her to run up the lawn and touch the surface of the pool. Just before she was about to creep through the gate he told her the pool was turned black by the souls of a hundred drowned sailors.

Don’t be a wimp, Ange. You just have to touch it.

And the rest of them had crouched behind the fern and gorse as she pushed open the gate, heart hammering, hinges creaking as the house loomed over her. She’d run as fast as she could towards the pool filled with the ghosts of dead men. Of course one of the group had decided to split the air with a scream to scare her. It had worked and she’d half jumped out of her skin before escaping the house as fast as she could. When she caught up with them, they’d all laughed hysterically as they hared back along the cliff path towards St Just. Seeing Tamsyn walking through the same gate, history repeating itself, treading the same footsteps Rob and she had trodden two decades earlier hit her with a pang of nostalgia.

She watched the girls until they disappeared from sight, then picked up a cloth and the bottle of Jif. Her son was on the other side of the garden, sanding the railings. Her heart tightened as she watched him. He was so deflated, so altered, and each day that passed he seemed to lose a little more of his spirit. Rob’s death had left a hole in all their hearts, but with Jago it was as if his fire had gone out. He wasn’t robust enough to cope with the stress of the mine closures and the dearth of jobs on top of it. Tamsyn was different. There was a furnace inside her. Granfer said it was the red hair. Fiery and strong-willed. But Jago? Too sensitive, too delicate, and she worried he would wither to nothing if he carried on the path he was following. She knew he smoked marijuana and God only knew what else. So many of the kids took harder drugs too. He promised her he didn’t touch stuff like that but she suspected he was lying to her. She didn’t blame them though. What else was here for them? It was all so bleak. Though it would break her heart she wished he’d come down the stairs one morning with his rucksack packed and announce he was leaving for London. There was nothing for the young in this forgotten corner of England with its deserted mine shafts and boarded-up high streets. But she knew he wouldn’t go. He was a home-bird like she was. As a child all he’d wanted was cuddles and while his sister was out with Rob climbing cliffs and building fires, he’d be curled up with her on the armchair, happily reading his motoring mags while she stroked his hair and breathed him in.