‘You gave us such a fright,’ Bella says. ‘They say it probably isn’t anything too serious, but when you passed out, it took you such a long time to come round and you were so confused. We thought it better to be safe than sorry.’

The paramedic looms over her, fiddling with wires and other bits of apparatus they have attached to her.

‘Hello, Miss Goddard,’ he says. ‘You had us a little worried there for a while. How are you feeling?’

‘Perfectly fine,’ she says, struggling to pronounce the words clearly because her tongue seems to be stuck to the roof of her mouth and her lips don’t move very well. ‘Can I have some water?’

They take her to hospital anyway and, after a very long wait and loads of tests, she’s declared fit to go home.

Next morning Bella is there in her bungalow, sleepy and tousled, bringing her a cup of tea in bed.

‘You stayed the night?’

‘I couldn’t leave you alone, could I? Not after that. The sofa is surprisingly comfortable.’ Bella sits down on the bed. ‘That was quite a day yesterday, wasn’t it? I’m sorry it all got a bit too much for you.’

‘Don’t be sorry. It was what I wanted, remember. You got me there, my darling, and I’m very grateful. But what happened?’

‘Lewis found the chain.’

Ah, yes, of course. That terrible clinking sound.

‘Do you suppose Jimmy really . . .?’ Bella asks.

Molly shakes her head. ‘I don’t think it’s likely, my darling. It was probably the chain Eli used for Sarge.’ She sighs. ‘It’s all so long ago.’

‘Lewis also found this.’ Bella reaches into her pocket and brings out a small piece of white porcelain tube. Molly weighs it in her hand, remembering the long, curved stem it was once part of, the small round bowl that was constantly refilled and relit, and the clouds of smoke that really did deter gnats.

‘It’s a piece of clay pipe. Thank you, my darling. And please thank Lewis. I shall treasure it. It’ll help me remember Eli and the good times we had, bless his poor, kind soul.’

A month passes and Molly receives a letter from Kit, in spidery old-man’s writing, saying how much he enjoyed meeting her again after all these years and enclosing a photograph of Chris’s two children, whom he considers his ‘grandkids’. They are lanky teenage boys, both in sports kit, with dark floppy hair and high colour to their cheekbones: miniature versions of their great-uncle at the same age.

She writes back, sending a photograph of Lewis, who is nothing like her, of course, but of whom she is immensely proud, she says. And she tells Kit something of their visit to Eli’s glade, and finding the wheel and the piece of clay pipe.