I took a deep breath and swallowed. ‘I thought there might be something I could do that was useful. It’ll be very upsetting, sifting through everything. I could help pack things in boxes to take to the charity shop. Cook lunch and supper. Just be around to give moral support.’

‘I don’t want you around. I just want my family to myself.’

I have wasted too many hours mulling over our relationship, Caprice. I think, in retrospect, it became worse when Rupert died. I ask myself why – was it because you missed him and envied the fact I still had Miles? Or were you jealous because Rupert was more fond of me than you liked to admit? Any compliments he ever paid me made your lips tighten and your body stiffen.

But we’ve rubbed along OK, haven’t we? I have tried to make excuses for your difficult behaviour and to be patient. Until just recently, when you moved out of your annexe, into our house. You are no longer my mother-in-law but an unwelcome guest. An unwelcome guest I can no longer tolerate.

46

Hayley

You have invited me to join you on a winter trip to Hampton Court Palace. It will be a real highlight for my mother to read about in my diary, Miles. You were given free mid-week tickets. The boys are at school and Saffron is busy. Caprice is too tired to go out all day. There is something wrong with her thyroid gland apparently. Her consultant is balancing the amount of thyroxin she needs. Ramping it up.

So I got lucky.

Swanning around a grand building with a dreamboat of a man. Pretending a man like you is interested in a girl like me. Just for one day.

We are walking along the haunted gallery. My spine begins to tingle as I look out for Catherine Howard running and screaming down this corridor. The tale is that she had been arrested for adultery, and imprisoned in her room, in 1541. She escaped, and was racing down the corridor hoping to find Henry in the chapel, wanting to plead her innocence. She was caught by the guards, restrained and never saw Henry again. A few months later she was beheaded at the Tower of London, aged nineteen. But her ghost is still seen and heard screaming along this corridor to this day.

‘Do you believe in ghosts, Miles?’ I ask.

‘Well, that depends on what you mean by a ghost.’

‘You’re an academic, so everything you believe will depend on a range of facts bound to confuse me.’

You smile your honeyed smile. ‘So young and so cynical, Hayley.’

‘Come on. Do you think Catherine Howard’s ghost comes screaming down here from time to time? Or do you think it’s just a story made up to tantalise the tourists?’

Your smile widens. ‘I think she’s about to blast past us any moment.’

We both laugh.

‘Yeah, right.’