The path to the viewing platform on the riverbank was less overgrown, as though it had no need to hinder intruders, none of whom could have reached it from the river. Roy halted by the platform, glowering around him. “So where is it?” he said as if I were to blame.

“I’m seeing what you’re seeing,” I said, only to wonder how often this was still the case. “You tell me.”

“We must have come through the wrong bit of wall.”

“I guarantee we didn’t. I recognised the house we parked outside.”

“Then where’s she been going?” Roy said not entirely unlike a plea.

“There’s only one place it could be, isn’t there?” When he simply stared I said “The hotel we just passed.”

Roy stalked along the path to kick up gravel on his way to the building. He confronted it without a word until I joined him, and hardly needed to say “Nobody’s going to be living in there.”

“It looks as if someone got in.”

“That’s not the same as living.” Quite like an adult indulging a child’s fancy, Roy made his way onto the threshold strewn with glass and slate, where he sent his flashlight beam through the gap between the door and its frame. “You’re right,” he said. “Somebody’s been in.”

“Then let’s explore as long as we’re here. It’s been a while since we had an adventure together.”

Might this sound like a complaint about his escapades with Bella? Perhaps the look he gave me simply meant he thought I was being childish or treating him as less than his years. All the same, he took hold of the edge of the door to exert a tentative shove before pocketing the phone so as to heave two-handed at the door. Soon he desisted, swabbing his forehead with the back of a hand. “You try if you want, dad.”

I did my best not to feel too dismayed by his lack of strength. Surely it was just a symptom of a summer cold. As I made for the door a shard of glass cracked underfoot with a shrill sound that seemed to pierce my nerves. Seizing the door with both hands, I threw all my weight against it, and it stuttered reluctantly inwards, forcing a soft but determined hindrance to retreat – the carpet, of course. “No reason not to go in now,” I said.