‘You’re lying! He was here last night. He was here last weekend. ’

‘Calm down.’ She comes towards me on the landing, tries to take hold of me.

‘Get away from me!’

‘All right. Don’t worry, I won’t touch you. Can we sit down and talk about this? I don’t understand what’s happened or what you’re accusing me of, but I promise you, Aidan’s not here.’

I turn away from her and give the door behind me a hard shove, smacking it against a wall. The bathroom. Tiny. No Aidan. Above the lavatory there’s an airing cupboard. I start to pull out towels, sheets, pillowcases. Soon it’s empty.

Nothing.

‘Where is he?’ I say again.

‘He’s not here, Ruth. Let’s go downstairs and talk. I was hoping you might have brought me something.’ She mimes writing.

My eyes move to the next door, the one she’s blocking with her body. ‘Get out of the way. He’s in there, isn’t he? With all the paintings.’

Her smile dips, pulls into a tight line. ‘Your Aidan Seed isn’t here. I can see you’re not going to believe me until you’ve checked for yourself. Go ahead, be my guest. I’ll be downstairs, when you’re ready to talk.’

Once she’s gone, I start to search the rooms. In her bedroom, I empty drawers and a wardrobe, not bothering to put anything back. I look under the bed, behind the mould-spotted curtains. Aidan isn’t there. Nor are his clothes or any of his possessions.

A voice in my head whispers: What if you’re wrong?

The second door won’t open all the way. The room is too full of Mary’s pictures. Carefully, I manoeuvre myself in. There’s a pounding sound coming from downstairs: music. I hear the word ‘survivor’ shouted once, twice. The smell of smoke drifts up to me. I know she’s in the kitchen with a cigarette in her hand, waiting for me to admit defeat.

If a person wanted to hide in this house, this is the place they’d pick. One by one, I drag the canvases through to the other room, Mary’s bedroom. She must be able to hear what I’m doing, but she doesn’t try to stop me. Before long, the room is full. Canvases are piled up on the bed, leaning against it on every side. I’ve used up every inch of space, yet the front bedroom is still far from empty. I’ll have to start putting things in the bathroom.

My arms ache, but I can’t allow myself to give up, even though I know by now that I won’t find Aidan here.

I stop when I see a word I recognise. It’s been written in black marker pen on the back of an unframed picture: BLANDFORD.

Abberton, Blandford, Darville, Elstow, Goundry . . .