‘They mean an answer. So you can grieve properly and move on with your life,’ Bella tells her. ‘They use it all the time these days.’

‘Well, I don’t have closure, or anything like it,’ Molly mutters. ‘In fact, they’ve made it worse, now.’ She feels deflated, like a birthday balloon left forgotten in a corner.

Bella knows that she cannot let it rest there. This business of the bones has started something, opened Pandora’s box. She cannot let her mother go to her grave without knowing what happened that terrible evening in Wormley.

That night she searches the internet for Kit Waddington and finds nothing helpful, until she remembers that at one point in her mother’s story someone referred to him as Christopher. She searches again, and finds someone with that name who founded an apparently successful vineyard in Dorset, producing wines called, she notices with a jolt, ‘Dragon Valley’.

The website has a photo of the managing director, a Mr Chris Marshall. He is good-looking, dark-haired, with high colour to his cheeks, just as Molly described Kit. Apart from apparently having the same first name, what relationship – if any – does he have to Kit Waddington? The old man must be in his late eighties by now, if he’s even still alive. But there is no harm in trying, and no time to waste.

She emails the vineyard, marked ‘for the attention of Mr Christopher Waddington’:

Dear Mr Waddington,

I am the daughter of Miss Molly Goddard, whom I believe you may have known when you were both youngsters, living in Wormley, Suffolk. She and I recently revisited the village and she spoke about the wonderful times you had on the lake at Wormley Hall, as well as the sudden tragedy of her brother’s disappearance. If you feel able to reply to this email, she would love to make contact again.

With best wishes,

Bella Browning, née Goddard

A standard acknowledgement from Dragon Valley Wines arrives almost by return – ‘Thank you for your enquiry, which has been passed on to the relevant team’ – but then nothing. She calls and speaks to a pleasant woman who says she will chase it up, but then hears no more. A week passes, then ten days, and Bella begins to give up hope.

But who else is there to try? All the others who might have known anything – the Waddington parents, Mr and Mrs Diamond, the Blackmans and Aunt Mary – will all be long gone. In an idle moment she googles Jane and Juliet Timpson, but the search reveals no likely leads.

Then, quite out of the blue:

Dear Ms Browning,