It was all too much to take in. ‘Why, why, why, why?’ I found myself banging the table with my fist, till Pa reached over and held it. ‘It’s okay, darling. We’ll get to the bottom of this, don’t you worry.’

‘Did he leave any sign? A note?’ I asked.

Her face darkened. ‘There was something, yes. Hubby gave it to the police.’

‘Did he read it? What did it say?’

‘You shouldn’t be asking, Molly,’ Pa said, taking my arm.

‘I want to know. Was it anything to do with my brother?’

Mrs D shook her head vehemently. ‘Good heavens, no. Not about the little laddie. Some garbled stuff about the hut and the land, I think. Nothing we need to worry ourselves with.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s all in the hands of the police now, my dear. As if you didn’t have enough to worry about, you poor dears.’

The scene played itself in my head, over and over. How Eli had returned to gather up some of his possessions and discovered that his beloved hut had burned to the ground. How would he have reacted? Did he light one last pipe and smoke it? Did he say anything? Did he cry? And where was Sarge? I felt sure Eli could not, even in his most distressed state, have been able to kill the dog, too.

He would have had to throw the rope over a branch, knot a loop, climb the ladder, put the loop over his head and then . . . Once he’d jumped, did he struggle, try to get back to the ladder and regain his footing? How did you die when you hanged yourself? Do you break your neck or slowly suffocate from the pressure on your windpipe? It was all so unthinkable, and yet my mind could not stop itself thinking.

And all the while the terrible dread: that we might never see my brother again.

It was that day they brought in the divers. We didn’t see them ourselves, but Mr Blackman reported on every step of the police search, so we had little choice but to hear about ‘black-clad men with breathing apparatus’ rowing around the lake and then jumping in at various points to search underwater. I found myself imagining how one of the divers might later report about coming face-to-face with an angry crocodile or dragon. My distracted brain was threatening to lose its grip on reality.

The hours dragged by. I had never known time move so slowly. The police came to give an update: they had conducted a thorough search of the lake, the islands and the woodland around, but had found no sign of Jimmy. This was good news, they suggested, although I could hardly see why.