Conmere, Wednesday, 8 May, 2.15 p.m.

Harry dumped his bag onto his bed and, going through to the en-suite, splashed cold water over his face.

‘Shit.’ It was the only word he could think of to describe the past tortuous hour. One where he could barely look his mother in the eye yet could hardly stop looking at her. How could she be so ill and still look so elegant and well? Why wouldn’t she confide in him? He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to carry on as if he didn’t know the cancer had returned. He wasn’t exactly famed for Oscar-winning performances when it came to hiding his feelings.

Drying his face with the soft white towel, he went back through to the bedroom. It had been a hard decision to stay here in the lodge where he’d lived with Elizabeth or to stay at the main house, but in the end his desire to hide away from the painful memories was lost to his greater desire to face those ghosts. He hated the thought of anything having that sort of power or control over him. His mother had arranged for the lodge to be cleaned from top to bottom and, in her words, given a small makeover. Looking around the place, he saw that had meant new curtains, a new bedspread and some fresh cushions in the living room. Subtle changes, but they were enough to signify a new start. He appreciated his mother’s thoughtfulness on this occasion. He didn’t want to dwell on the past or the dark thoughts that inevitably followed.

He sat on the edge of the bed – his side of the bed – and stretched his hand out across the duck-egg blue duvet cover as he gave a small sigh. It wasn’t that he’d never slept in this bed alone and, indeed, had done so for several months after Elizabeth’s death, but being back here was stirring up more feelings than he had anticipated. A fleeting image of Elizabeth lying on the bed, propped up on one elbow, smiling at him while her fingers traced a path through the hairs on his chest came to mind. They hadn’t been married very long and those early days were such happy ones. He closed his eyes as her smiling face was eclipsed by one of anger and rage. One of their arguments where she had shouted and screamed at him and, in frustration, thrown her hairbrush at him. It had caught him perfectly above the eye. He touched his right eyebrow as he remembered that day and how he’d come up with a fake story of missing an intended catch after asking Elizabeth to chuck the hairbrush to him. God, she was fierce when she was angry.