‘Said there’s a lady from the big house.’

I dried my hands on a tea towel. The rain was still coming down and it was almost dark beyond the kitchen window. I had to look through my own reflection to see the back garden and the field beyond. Saw my own little kitchen with its soft warm light and its comfortable chairs and sturdy furniture and my children’s clothes dripping dry in front of the fire. I remember that moment. Just one little heartbeat, one instant: a photograph I carry with me – seeing James’s head bowed to his task and the curls of steam coming off the coats like they were souls leaving empty bodies.

‘That’s the door,’ said James, in response to the knocking. ‘I’d get it but I’m decapitating Anne Boleyn.’

‘Good lad,’ I said, smiling at him. I wasn’t keen on the activity but I admired the big word.

I opened the kitchen door and stepped into the cool of the corridor. The kitchen was always hotter than a butterfly house but every other room took your breath away with cold. Brian had got there before me and opened the door. He was standing on the front step wearing a dressing gown. He was a short lad and it trailed on the floor. He looked like a wizard, with his floppy sleeves and the puddle of material behind him. And she was standing on the path outside, looking past him. Looking at me. Cordelia. She was paler than when I’d first seen her and her hair was stuck to her face like it were painted on her skin. There were dark lines under her eyes and her coat was soaked three shades darker than it was meant to be. I think she was smiling. Not a proper one – not a grin or the way you look when somebody says something that tickles your funny bone. But she was trying to make herself look a bit softer. She looked like a child trying to hold a pleasing face for a school photo. My heart went out to her. I’d been worried, to tell the truth. After what I’d found in the church and after what Pike and Pat had said, I’d been desperate to talk to Cordelia again. But we hadn’t parted on good terms. It felt like I’d let her down. Told a fib and turned my face away from hers when she asked me to support her story of what we had seen when the tree came down. I’d had a nervous feeling in my chest at the thought of walking up the hill and knocking on her door. But she were here now. Here, looking forlorn and feeble and desperate to be invited in.

‘Mrs Hemlock,’ I said, like it was all normal and we were friends. ‘Brian, let the lady in, she’ll catch her death.’