Behind her, the bed was covered in faded photos. It told a story. Turning around she could see it. It was clear. A happy family. Love shouted from each smile, no matter the angle. Her hands shook as she picked up a picture of her as a toddler. Her father’s arms were open wide, and she had a proud smile on her face. She sighed. This wasn’t a memory she could have had. She was too young. But those first steps had been well documented. Turning the pictures over, her mother had carefully written London, 1957.

Her chest tightened. She’d missed Lottie’s first steps because she’d been called out to Bosnia, so her daughter had toddled into George’s arms here on Boskenna’s lawn. Somewhere there was a photo. She should be grateful and she was. Looking at these pictures, maybe leaving Lottie with her mother had been the right thing. At the time it had been the only thing. No, she was lying to herself. She had run from her daughter, who had been like a puppy – big eyes and unconditional love. She had never asked for that love. She had never asked for the child, but by the time she’d discovered the pregnancy, fate had decided she would have it. She was thirty-six and a public figure thanks to her job. Being held hostage in Afghanistan for six months in 1989 had just added to her fame.

She closed her eyes. Unlike her childhood, Diana could remember every detail of those six months, no matter how she pushed it away. Of course, that was part of the problem with Lottie. There in her exotic eyes were her father’s. No matter how she had tried, she couldn’t separate her daughter’s eyes from his. Each glance broke her. And yet she hadn’t given her up. She should have but they had eventually found a way. It hadn’t been perfect, but Lottie had never wanted for anything . . . except her love. That was why she knew she never should have become a mother. She couldn’t love a child enough but looking at these pictures, Diana was wrong about the reason. She had been loved and she had loved in return.

On her most recent assignment, she’d met a young woman who had been searching for who she was. She had lost everything except – as she had phrased it – her bones, her essence that she carried inside her. She’d said it called out to her in the night, but she couldn’t translate what it was trying to say to her. She had no home. She was far from the land she was born in and she was alone. Diana’s heart reached out. It understood. She too had been alone, fearing everything had been lost.

Her words had opened up Diana’s own history inside her. After decades of being silenced, it shouted to her. For years she’d believed that the past was just that and had no impact on the present she was living. Diana knew why she operated this way. She didn’t want to look back. She’d run from the past. Most people would run from what she’d seen in the course of her career, but it had called to her. She had covered her history so deeply with new images and memories that were richer, brighter and sadder so that she had squashed to oblivion what was underneath. Now, in the autumn of her life, she finally wanted to spring-clean and find out what she’d hidden.