More words came into his head, and he had to let those ones out too. ‘I love her,’ he shouted into the wind, then absorbed the sound of those syllables, their weight and substance, let the certainty come back to him and sink into his bones. And then he turned towards the east, towards the sun – and London – and shouted again. ‘I love you, Anna Barry!’ Lewis barked and ran around madly below him.

It had felt good to say it out loud, even though he didn’t know what good it would do him. But letting the words free, so they were no longer trapped inside his head and heart, had seemed like the right thing to do. He could imagine them as a white dove that had been released from the pinnacle of the moors, now rising on thermals and disappearing beyond the horizon. He stood there for a few minutes, watching the sky, before exhaling heavily and making his way off the rocks. Suddenly, he was really hungry.

‘I think a massive fry-up is in order,’ he said to Lewis, who barked his agreement as they set off back in the direction of the Land Rover.

But it seemed his subconscious wasn’t finished with him yet. As he navigated through the gorse and jumped over peaty streams, a little voice began to whisper in his ear. A voice he hadn’t heard for years.

What about me? she said. You left me in a dark place, too.

Pip.

Once, he’d heard that little girl speak so clearly that she’d felt real to him. He’d written a handful of books before he’d stumbled across Pip, but she’d definitely been his favourite character: small and thoughtful, bold and resourceful. She’d appeared in his imagination one day, fully formed, with her short, tomboyish blonde hair and a determined look in her clear blue eyes. She’d almost felt like another daughter at times.

The resemblance between her and Lena, when she’d come along, had been both unsettling and magical, as if, in some cosmic way, he’d already known his child, the person she would become. For a long time, he’d refused to let himself think about Pip, but he did so now, imagining what the expression on her face would be as she reminded him of her predicament.

Sorry, girl, he replied silently. I left you camping in that Vale of Shadows, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to. It was only ever supposed to be a pit stop, but then… I just didn’t know how to get you out again. I didn’t know how to get either of us out.

Pip tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. Do you think you could try?

Brody pondered her question as he turned to come back down the hill towards the car park.

Maybe.

Maybe he could.

He’d done a lot of things in the last few months that he’d never thought he’d be able to do again. Maybe there was room for one more impossible thing in his life.