‘It’s a moonstone, Maia,’ he’d told me as I’d stared at the unusual opalescent stone, which shone with a blueish hue and was encircled with tiny diamonds. ‘It’s older than I am, and comes with a very interesting story.’ I remembered he’d hesitated then, as if he was weighing something up in his mind. ‘Maybe one day I’ll tell you what it is,’ he’d continued. ‘The necklace is probably a little grown up for you now. But one day, I think it will suit you very well.’

Pa had been right in his assessment. At the time, my body was festooned – like all my schoolfriends’ – with cheap silver bangles and large crosses hanging from leather strings around my neck. I’d never worn the moonstone and it had sat here, forgotten on the shelf, ever since.

But I would wear it now.

Going to the mirror, I fastened the tiny clasp of the delicate gold chain around my neck and studied it. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the stone seemed to glow luminously against my skin. My fingers went instinctively to touch it as I walked to the window and looked out over the twinkling lights of Lake Geneva.

‘Rest in peace, darling Pa Salt,’ I whispered.

And before further memories began to engulf me, I walked swiftly away from my childhood room, out of the house and along the narrow path that took me to my current adult home, some two hundred metres away.

The front door to the Pavilion was left permanently unlocked; given the high-tech security which operated on the perimeter of our land, there was little chance of someone stealing away with my few possessions.

Walking inside, I saw that Claudia had already been in to switch on the lamps in my sitting room. I sat down heavily on the sofa, despair engulfing me.

I was the sister who had never left.

3

When my mobile rang at two in the morning, I was lying sleepless on my bed, pondering why I seemed unable to let go and cry over Pa’s death. My stomach performed an abrupt one hundred and eighty degree turn as I saw on the screen it was Tiggy.

‘Hello?’

‘Maia, I’m sorry to call so late, but I only just picked up your message. We have a very patchy signal up here. I could tell from your voice something was wrong. Are you okay?’

The sound of Tiggy’s sweet, light voice thawed the edges of the frozen rock that currently seemed to have taken the place of my heart.

‘Yes, I’m okay, but . . .’

‘Is it Pa Salt?’

‘Yes,’ I gulped, breathless from tension. ‘How did you know?’

‘I didn’t . . . I mean I don’t . . . but I had the strangest feeling this morning when I was out on the moors searching for one of the young does we’d tagged a few weeks back. I found her dead, and then for some reason, I thought of Pa. I brushed the feeling off, thinking that I was just upset over the doe. Is he . . . ?’