‘That’s that, then,’ Bella says. ‘There’s no way I’m pushing your wheelchair along there. It’s far too rough.’ She gets out of the car, goes to the metal gate, gives it a push and rattles the chain fixing it to the gatepost. ‘Anyway, it’s locked,’ she says, with a hint of triumph.

But something has become dislodged. The jaws of the heavy padlock have parted, and the chain now hangs free. The gate starts to swing open of its own accord. As it gains momentum, Bella lurches forward to close it, but Molly shouts, ‘Hold on, love. Now we can drive down.’

‘“No entry,” it says. Can’t you read the sign?’ Bella climbs back into the car.

‘If we don’t go now, I may never see it again,’ Molly says. ‘It’s Sunday, love. No one is here to stop us.’

Bella rests her forehead on the steering wheel. ‘That just about tops it. My eighty-four-year-old mother is telling me to break the law.’

‘It’s not the law, love, only a company notice. Please. It’ll only take a few seconds.’

It is my last chance, she thinks. My last chance to . . . She cannot actually bring herself to say it, even to herself. But she knows her daughter too well: there is no point in pleading, so she sits quietly and waits.

After a few moments Bella sighs and starts the car, puts it into gear and cautiously drives through the now-open gateway and down the track. The gravel is surprisingly smooth and in no time at all the lake, or at least the area where it used to be, comes into view. But it is nothing like Molly remembers. Where water once glittered there is a deep, muddy crater, its edges churned into chaos by wheel tracks and footprints. Red-and-white plastic tape is strung from posts and trees, and more signs – ironic now: DEEP WATER, DANGER OF DROWNING. At the bottom of the crater is a puddle of tea-coloured water.

All around one end the trees have been felled and the boggy area where the stream used to feed into the lake, where the marsh marigolds bloomed every summer in such profusion, has been pulverised by the tracks of heavy vehicles. Two of them, a lurid orange, lurk in the far corner of the field like giant insects with their long arms folded, ready to pounce.

Molly puts her face in her hands. ‘And to think that’s where Jimmy’s been, all these years.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘I know it. In my heart.’ She hammers her chest with a fist. Molly accepts Bella’s tissue and wipes her eyes.