“What do you want to do, Al?”

“Tell the truth.”

The enquiry lasted six months. CID worked with the Nepalese police, and there was a second sweep of the Annapurna range, but there was no sign of Daisy and Isaac’s remains. The undergrowth was too thick, the range too expansive. Al got angry. She accused the Nepalese police of doing a cover-up so that tourism wouldn’t suffer, and threatened to fly over there and look for them herself if they couldn’t do it properly, but Liz talked her out of it. The case was dropped a month later, and Isaac and Daisy are still officially classed as missing persons. Al’s still beating herself up about it. I think she was hoping she’d be tried for Daisy’s murder, even though it was an accident, just to rid herself of the terrible weight she’s been carrying around for the last five years.

If only it were that easy. There are still times when I wake up in the middle of the night, choking on black smoke and crying out Leanne’s name, only for Will to wrap his arms around me and Jack to bound into the bedroom and push his furry head between us. I adopted him after the fire. The court case against Gary Fullerton, prosecuting him for animal neglect as well as his involvement in the break-in, had been successfully concluded, and Jack was free to find a new home. I knew he’d struggle to settle into a new sanctuary, and he’d already had enough trauma to last a lifetime.

When Sheila returned from her holiday, three days early, and surveyed the blackened remains of Green Fields, I handed her my notice; but instead of accepting it, she sat me down at her kitchen table and listened for three long hours as I told her the truth about who I really am. The only time she showed a flicker of disapproval was when I told her the real reason Angharad had quit as a volunteer, but she seemed unperturbed when I warned her that Green Fields might suffer if Angharad kept to her word and ran a piece on me.

“So people will come to stare at you instead of the animals, for a change. If you can deal with that, Jane, then so can I.”