Jimmy had considered Eli a true friend, his only friend. He loved that hut, instinctively understanding that it was a safe place, and he returned again and again. He must have felt desperate to help, and hearing her and Kit talking about how they could save the hut could have inspired him to do the same. Did he really have the courage to go into the woods in that storm?

But he was a very strong-minded boy. He’d spent his life battling his disabilities and, once he’d decided on something, very little could be done to dissuade him. She can imagine Jimmy fighting his way through the wind and the rain, his eyes fixed, his jaw set, doggedly determined to help his friend, and her heart overflows with pride. He was a remarkable individual – something she’d completely failed to appreciate when he was alive.

Why hadn’t he told her about his plan?

The shame floods back: how she’d resented him, dismissing his ideas as silly or childish. She can hear herself shouting at him: Go away and stop bothering me and Do it your way, if you think you’re so clever. Siblings say such things to each other every day, but Jimmy couldn’t answer back because he didn’t have the words. The cruelty was all one-way. No wonder he’d decided not to tell her.

Molly grips the arms of her chair, trying to anchor herself in the present, and the reassuring sight of Bella returning with a tea tray helps.

‘Oh, Mum! Look, here’s a tissue. Dry your eyes and have a cuppa. We can talk about it.’

Suddenly Molly knows what she has to do. ‘I need to go back, Bella. To Eli’s hut.’

‘You said it’d all gone, Mum. Burned to the ground seventy years ago. There won’t be anything left. Perhaps we ought to tell the police? Let them investigate.’

‘No!’ Molly almost shouts. ‘I don’t want them involved. But I need to go back to the glade. To ask him.’

‘Ask who?’

‘Jimmy.’

She’s being illogical, of course; it’s ridiculous. But Bella calmly pours the tea and says, ‘If that’s what you want, Mum, we’ll try to make it happen.’

Molly knows it is impossible. How is she to get down a woodland path when she can only shuffle twenty steps with a walking frame? As Bella leaves, she promises to make what she calls a ‘recce’.

A few days later she telephones to say that the route is reasonably wheelchair-friendly, but only up to a certain point. After that, the track is narrow and full of tree roots. Besides which, she says, she could find no trace of any hut anywhere.

But Molly has set her heart on going.

Bella promises to try and get her there. ‘By hook or by crook, Mum.’

‘You never say that. It’s one of my phrases.’