“Precisely. It reminds me of being a boy in Durham Cathedral. Do you know it? Have you ever been? There’s graffiti all over the columns and the tombs. I was fascinated by it as a child. Cromwell incarcerated Scottish prisoners of war in there and threw away the key. Can you imagine? Three thousand men left to die in a cathedral. So they carved their anger all over it. They left behind their marks.” Ralph puts the flat of his hand on the wall. There is something in the gesture, in the gentleness and reverence of it, that reminds Harry of Rachel placing her palm over her husband’s photograph. “These walls don’t resonate anger, though. I don’t think so, anyway. Do you? I see pride and a determination and that rather appeals to me. I don’t struggle to sleep within these walls.”

Harry recalls the rasp of a penknife on the wall of a barn, the weight of it in his hand. He remembers them carving their three initials together, Francis’s finger instructing the design and Will laughing at his side.

“I think you’re right,” he says.

He also remembers taking a knife out of Francis’s hands. Francis’s fingers are trembling around the handle. He is afraid of Francis having the knife and what he is about to do with it. He uncurls Francis’s fingers carefully, slowly, one by one. For a moment the recalled image is as sharp as his own fingers now around the glass, but then Ralph’s voice and the present push in.

“Shall I top that up?” he asks.

“Yes. Please. Thank you.”

“Do stay for dinner,” says Cassie, holding out her glass. “It’s not much, we don’t eat lavishly, but it’s nice to have a new face at the table.”

“Are you sure?”

“Utterly certain,” says Ralph. “I might make one condition, though. Will you take a photograph of Cass for me?”

“A photograph?” Harry looks at Cassie’s expressive eyes, her eloquent hands, the playful smile now stretching on her face. “Wouldn’t you prefer a portrait instead?”

HARRY LAYS OUT his pencils and chalks. There is always something of a ceremony at this stage, like a meditation in the preparation. It is when he feels both most and least in control, when it is all possibility. It is this moment that has always excited him, and also the moment when he always expects to look up and see Edie’s face.

“Tilt your chin up slightly, would you?”

It’s a strong face, a kind face, an intelligent face, good bones and good skin, but it is not Edie’s face.

“Like this?” Cassie strikes a haughty pose, is somewhere between a countess and a greyhound, but then collapses into laughter. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to this.”

Harry smiles back at her. “Don’t worry. Who is? Just try to relax.”