Lottie had looked at her elegant grandmother and wondered what being complete meant. Now as Lottie reached the gate that led out onto the path, the smell of the pine needles beneath her feet scented the air. The ground was so dry. She couldn’t remember a summer so hot. Never had she so looked forward to rain and never had she felt less like going to the watchtower. Earlier it had been bad enough. Somehow it was different in daylight but in the darkness her skin prickled, and her feet slowed.

She wasn’t alone. Whispered voices and the sound of feet filled the air. She suppressed the desire to scream. She fled to the watchtower, switched off her torch and stood still, waiting for whoever it was to pass. But the footsteps came closer. A beam of light showed their progress. Lottie pressed herself against the concrete support holding the platform above her.

‘Are you sure this is the way, Robert?’ the woman’s voice was soft and well spoken.

‘It looks different at night but yes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Take my arm.’

‘I know I thought it was a good idea to come here at the hour of his death. To . . . to let go finally, but . . .’ Her voiced trailed away and Lottie’s heart sank. John’s parents.

‘What time do you make it?’ he asked, and they walked right by Lottie.

‘About quarter past, I should think.’

She watched the beam of their torch move further out onto the headland and she followed. They were making a pilgrimage and she shouldn’t be a part of it. But she had to face her role in it. He had been their only child.

She stopped on the path, listening to the sounds of the night. Something moved in the undergrowth as John’s parents made their way out to the point. The backbeat of the music from the beach shook the still air. Lottie peered into the darkness below, looking to see lit cigarettes or phone screens but all was dark.

‘Hey you.’

Lottie spun around, heart thumping, but she realized it was from the beach, forgetting how sound carries around here. She knew this small headland like the back of her hand having used it as her personal playground for years. John hadn’t.

Now his parents had reached the bench and the light from their torch caught the bouquet of garden flowers his mother held.

‘Robert, I can’t do this. I can’t let go.’

‘We can. It’s what he’d want.’

‘But . . .’

Lottie stood by a tree. She shouldn’t be witnessing this. It was wrong. That night ten years ago, the music was all Groove Armada, who were headlining at the festival in a few days’ time. She didn’t recognize the music coming up from the beach now.

‘Be careful up there,’ a voice from below shouted.