I slept in Pa’s room that night. Or, rather, we lay together, holding each other throughout the long hours of darkness. Neither of us slept much, if at all. Mrs D stayed too, making up a bed for herself in one of the unused rooms.

At some point in the night I went off to sleep in Jimmy’s bed, imagining in my confused mind that I should keep it warm for him. I missed him with a fierce pain that no drugs could dull: his hot, clumsy little body, his crazy smile, the way he hummed tunelessly to himself, how he would tug at my arm if he wanted attention. All the things I’d usually found irritating I now desired more than anything else in the world. I prayed shamelessly to a God I didn’t believe in.

Dawn crept in and Jimmy was still missing. And that morning something else had gone, too, although at first I wasn’t able to figure out what. It was just a feeling, as though a malign, unseen presence had slipped into our lives, sucking from us all the comfort and strength that our depleted little family had somehow managed to create in that unfamiliar house, this new place, these new circumstances. The ground beneath my feet felt no longer solid but shifting, uncertain, unpredictable. Normally I would have turned to Pa, finding solace in at least being able to talk through my feelings. But how could we look to each other for strength, when both of us were so weak and powerless to bring Jimmy back?

Mrs D went home to change and get her husband his breakfast, and at around ten o’clock Weasel Face and Stubby returned, telling us about their plans for the day’s renewed search. They also brought back my book.

Shortly after they left, Mrs D arrived with a face as long as a barn door. Her normally healthy complexion was deadly pale and her voice trembled. ‘Oh, my poor dears. I’m sorry to bring you more sad news.’

We immediately assumed the worst. ‘Spit it out, woman,’ Pa snapped. I shushed him gently. He was on a knife edge.

‘Poor, poor Eli.’ She began to weep, trying to stem the flow with a totally inadequate lacy handkerchief. Pa produced a man-sized linen version and I put an arm round her.

‘Come and sit down,’ I said. ‘We’ll put the kettle on.’

It turned out I wasn’t the only one worrying about Eli. At Mrs D’s insistence, her husband had walked up to the council houses first thing in the morning to see if he was all right. When there was no answer he’d checked around the building, looking in through windows to see whether he could detect any signs of habitation, but he could find nothing. So he went back down and into the woods to see whether Eli had tried to return to his hut.