“Save it for another visit.” We were speeding up a slope as cars on either side did, and I wasn’t sure if I felt more like a racer or a kidnapper. “There’s something I have to do over there,” I said.

I was hoping he wouldn’t ask what, and he didn’t speak. I might have switched the radio on if it hadn’t brought Bella to mind. I was anxious not to think of her in case this acted as a summons. Roy stayed quiet as far as the motorway and along it too, except for the occasional dramatic sniff, which I eventually quelled by directing him to the tissues in the glove compartment. When we left the motorway I turned towards the river. I thought Roy might ask where we were going, but perhaps he knew and didn’t want to say. Even when I parked opposite the gap in the overgrown swollen wall he stared at me before protesting “Dad, what are you trying to do?”

“As long as we’re here we may as well visit” – I tried not to pause long enough to betray my search for a phrase – “your lady friend.”

“I don’t even know if she’s here.”

“Then we can see her house at least.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t like us sneaking around.”

“Why should she think anyone is doing that? I would have thought she’d be glad to see you.”

He grimaced as though he’d strayed into a trap. “I’m calling her,” he said.

I thought of offering to call, but I couldn’t show him Bella’s name. I watched while his phone roused a bell – just a bell. At last he said “She’s busy or she’s blocked where she is.”

This sounded like the start of a refusal to explore, and I hastened to leave the car. “I’m going to see what’s to be seen,” I said.

Roy climbed out at once despite making his lack of enthusiasm plain. “Better not without me.”

I was first through the jagged gap and along the twisted path between the trees. Had they grown closer together? Certainly it was darker still beneath them, and the gloom seemed more extensive than it ought to be. When I glanced back I could barely make out Roy’s unhappy look, and the wall was nowhere visible. I was starting to feel we were on the wrong path, unless the hotel had somehow been rendered unseeable, when I glimpsed a hint of gravel through the trees ahead. I struggled through the undergrowth, which had unquestionably grown since my previous visit, and saw the hotel. As I experienced a version of relief Roy tramped off the path with a clatter of gravel, demanding “Where’s Bell’s house?”

I oughtn’t to display too much prior knowledge. “Let’s see along there,” I said.