I picture Nick finding respite in here during the day while the others were outside having a jolly time together. He’d have been lonely and angry, wondering what the hell he’d done to offend his friend, why she had set out to humiliate and isolate him. Anna must have been a gorgeous teenager, all pouting lips and batting eyelashes. Even while she hurt him, she would have expected his allegiance, his adoration. Has she changed that much? I’m not sure. No one really changes; we learn to moderate our behaviour, but it’s still our behaviour.

She takes the book out of my hand and puts it back where we found it. ‘I’ll show you where he hid that afternoon.’

I look back once before I leave the room, and I see my love lying on the bed, his hands locked behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. I feel his presence so sharply, I almost gasp.

Why didn’t you talk to me about any of this?

The house is a rabbit warren with separate wings and additions built across four centuries. There are three sets of stairs: the grand central staircase, with its deep oak skirting on which are displayed all sorts of odd things – stuffed birds, pieces of sculpture, an ostrich egg, clay objects created by children. Another smaller staircase leads from the linen room up to the attic. The narrow, painted servants’ stairs that I’d noticed earlier climb from the snug up to a shadowy corner of the first floor, and this is where Anna leads me. On the bend, there’s a door about three feet high. Anna opens it and leans in to flick a switch and a low wattage bulb floods the nook with yellow light. She stands back so that I can see inside.

Planks have been laid loosely over joists and there’s a collection of bunched-up carrier bags containing yellowing papers pushed into the corner. Abandoned spiders’ webs hang between bare rafters, blanketed in dust.

‘It’s the first place I’d look for someone,’ I say.

‘That didn’t matter. Nick knew that if anyone found him they’d ignore him. Except Izzy,’ she adds. ‘My sister was in here with him.’

‘With him? How do you know that, if she went missing while the rest of you were hiding?’

Anna scowls and her tone is defensive. ‘I found her, OK? She was upset. She told me. Then she said she was going to hide again and ran off. It was the last time I saw her.’

I try to put things together in my head. The bullying of Nick. The child running out into the rain. The motivation she might have had. And what about the other stuff that was going on?

‘What about Tim?’

‘What about him?’ Anna replies. Her fingers move to her hair, combing into it above her right ear and pressing into her scalp.