“Okay, okay, I won’t leave you. Callum, honey, I promise I won’t leave you.” I’ve gathered him up in my arms again. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.” I’m stroking his hair, his back, almost crooning to him, for how long I don’t know. Minutes, perhaps. Gradually I can feel the tension ease in him and his breathing return to normal.

Finally he lifts his head. I smooth away the tear tracks with my thumbs, feeling close to tears myself. “You have to go see,” he says, his face a heartbreaking mixture of dread and determination. “We’ll have to go together.”

Do we have to? Together? I debate it internally. My first instinct is to keep Callum well away from whatever has scared him. But would that be worse? Would he build up whatever he thinks he has seen in his head until it’s the stuff of nightmares, when the truth might be entirely innocuous? But at any rate, it’s clear he will not leave my side, and it’s equally clear I have to see whatever this is. Reluctantly I nod. “Okay. Together.”

So we climb the stairs together, with his little hand enveloped in mine, and I wonder that I ever thought him robust. Right now he feels as fragile as tissue paper. We walk across the landing to the door to the master bedroom—Carrie’s bedroom. I find I’m taking a deep breath as we enter.

Carrie’s bedroom is as messy as ever. The duvet hangs half off the bed, obscuring the small space beneath the bed on the side we’re standing. I take Callum’s hand and secure it on the back pocket of my jeans so as to free both of my own hands. “Okay?” I ask him. He nods back silently, his eyes dark pools of barely contained fear. I can feel his hand tightly bunching my jeans pocket material. I pull the duvet up and deposit it all on top of the bed. “Under here?” He nods again. I get down on my knees to look properly. Callum is still gripping my jeans pocket.

The space under the bed is so narrow that only a child of Callum’s size or smaller could fit, and the light from the window doesn’t penetrate far enough for me to be able to see properly. I sit up for a moment and pull out my mobile phone and switch on the torch function, then put my head back down to peer under the bed again. The pale yellowish light picks up a sock and a red hairbrush and the fact that the carpet under here could really use a pass of the Hoover. And then, at the far end, the pillow end, I can see . . .