Bless him, he did come. He said he’d pick me up from Reading Police Station at four o’clock. Samantha and I drank stewed brown tea in an all-night cafe in town, talking nonstop, and then wandered back to wait outside the station at the appointed time. He arrived at bang on 4.00 a.m., pulling up in our bottle-green Ford Escort. I’d never been so pleased to see him. We dropped Samantha off at the camp – I’d been hoping she’d want to come back to Salisbury with me, but she said all her stuff was in her tent – and then embarked on the empty road home.

‘She seems like quite a character,’ Dad said, after Samantha had slammed the rear passenger door and chirped her goodbyes, telling me she’d see me soon, thankfully not trying to kiss me in front of him.

‘She is.’ I pulled off my wellies and put my sweaty feet up on the dashboard. They smelled, but Dad didn’t remark on it. ‘I only just met her, yesterday. She lives in Salisbury too; that’s how we got talking. She really looked after me, it was so kind of her. I – I left Pete’s rucksack there. She’s going to bring it back.’

Dad was silent for a while, an unlit pipe clamped between his lips as he drove carefully along the deserted dual carriageway.

‘I could ask you what you were thinking, and why you did it,’ he said. ‘Your mum was in tears earlier when she realised you’d gone out before your birthday dinner. She spent a long time cooking that for you, you know. Pete was there, but it wasn’t the same without you.’

My own tears immediately returned to my eyes. Mum and I had a fractious relationship, but I hated the thought that I had made her cry. I hadn’t thought she’d be that bothered.

‘I seem to be upsetting her a lot recently,’ I said, wiping the back of my hand under my nose. ‘I understand about the dinner, and I’m sorry. I’ll tell her I am. But why did she have a fit yesterday morning, about me not wanting to pick up that stupid magazine from the newsagent’s? And why’s she always yelling at me?’

Dad sighed. ‘That wasn’t about you. Not yesterday. She was upset about something else.’

‘What?’ I tried not to sound belligerent, but did anyway.

There was a long pause. Dad’s eyes were fixed on the dark road.

‘Dad, what is it? You’re not getting divorced, are you?’

‘It’s nothing like that, love.’ He sounded so sad.

‘Please, just tell me.’

‘Well, Mum wanted you to go out because we had to phone the hospital at eight-fifteen for some test results.’

‘On…?’