It is while she is writing about Eli that the idea comes to her. He killed himself out of desperation and shame, and she has no idea where he was buried. But Eli was a true countryman and loved that woodland; he taught her and Jimmy to love it too. And he fought a lonely battle, over several years, to save the land from being sold and developed. The woodland is still there, a testament to his success. Thanks to him, local people can still walk in those woods, enjoying the snowdrops and bluebells, the birdsong and the peace. She would love to see Eli’s contribution recognised, his name remembered.

So she starts another letter: Dear Vicar. She asks him who looks after the woodland these days, and how the work is funded. Would she be able to make a contribution, she asks? After all, international publishing success has brought greater riches than she could ever have imagined and, even after generous gifts to Bella and her grandson, and a large annual donation to the Down’s Syndrome Association, Molly has more money in the bank than she will ever be able to spend in her lifetime.

Within a week she is visited by the new vicar – a charming middle-aged woman with curly grey hair, who strongly reminds her of Aunt Mary – accompanied by the parish clerk of Wormley, an older man who walks with two sticks.

Over tea and biscuits, they probe her gently about what she has in mind. She tells them about Eli – although she skips over the details of her own tragedy, and how Eli died. ‘He was an eccentric old boy who lived in a shepherd’s hut in the woods for at least a decade,’ she says. ‘And he taught me and my brother how to love nature.’

By the time they leave, it has been agreed that they will take the proposal to the parish council: a proper path through the woodland, which might – if they agree – be waymarked as ‘Eli Chadwick Way’, with benches placed at appropriate points, signboards with information about flora and fauna and, most important of all, a fund to maintain the woodland, which will be known as the Jimmy Goddard Bequest.

After they have gone, Molly finds herself smiling. She takes her walking frame and goes to the chest of drawers in the bedroom, leaning down with difficulty to retrieve, behind a pile of unworn and probably now moth-eaten woollen jumpers, the small box in which her old papers are stored. The sticky tape has long since lost its stick, the box is falling apart, but she manages to carry it back to the kitchen table where she sits and, with heart pumping, opens the lid.