Nikki vividly remembered Sam and Fleur clutching each other when Saffie had gone, when they were all back in England. He had held his sister in his bear-like grip and they had rocked together, to and fro, to and fro, in a dark room of that cold house. Nikki had watched the tears stream down Sam’s face as he whispered over and over, ‘Fleury, Fleury, Fleury.’

He could not say it was going to be all right or things would get better or time would heal, or any of the clichés people say to one another to comfort, knowing as they speak that it is the tone and texture of their words that register, not the content.

Sam knew, in those searing moments he held Fleur, that his beautiful, happy sister’s life was blighted forever by this second tragedy. Here was a sorrow that could never be healed, never absorbed into everyday life.

As they sat at the table, Fleur said suddenly, as if it still hurt, ‘If David hadn’t died and then Saffie been taken, I don’t think Sam would have gone to Australia for good. He couldn’t cope with all our combined grief. You, me, Laura and Peter. It was too much; bits of him broke off and fragmented. He had to get away…’

‘He ran away, Mum. He left us.’ Nikki could hear the childish lament in her voice. Sam had been the third beloved person to disappear from their lives.

Fleur looked at her. He ran away. In that second, Nikki saw that she had done exactly the same when she couldn’t bear any more.

Fleur broke the silence. ‘Sam needed to make his own life away from the shadow of mine. People can only take so much unhappiness. I think it was brave of him. He knew himself. He was a happy person whose good nature would have been destroyed if he hadn’t got away.’

Nikki thought suddenly: Fergus was the only one who didn’t run, who was steadfast throughout my whole life. And I gave him a hell of a lot of grief.

‘We’re lucky Fergus didn’t run too, then, aren’t we?’ It came out before Nikki could stop it.

Fleur could not interpret the tone in Nikki’s voice. Then she remembered Nikki’s reaction at Fergus’s funeral. Nikki had cried silently by day and inconsolably at night. When Fleur couldn’t bear the sound any longer, echoing her own grief in the silent house, she had gone into Nikki’s room.

‘Darling, enough! Fergus would be so upset to see you like this.’

‘I never told him I loved him! I never told him I loved him,’ Nikki had wailed over and over.

‘He knew! Nikki, he knew. How could he not know? He loved you as much as you loved him.’

Nikki had not let Fleur touch her, only her grandmother, but she had listened to their words and flown home to Jack comforted by them.

‘Yes,’ Fleur said evenly. ‘We were lucky to have Fergus and there was rarely a day when I didn’t thank God for it.’