“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?” My resentment wasn’t entirely feigned. “You wouldn’t be making all these visits,” I said, “if I hadn’t let you copy Thelma’s journal.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to keep asking where we are. It’s embarrassing.”

“It shouldn’t be.” In an attempt to sound less unreasonably insensitive I said “I’d like to know what her places were like too.”

“You didn’t get much out of the one you went to.”

“Perhaps I need to be with someone who finds more in them. That’s one reason I’m calling you now. I was thinking you and Bella shouldn’t have to go to so much trouble for your tour.”

His pause suggested reluctance, and so did his answer. “How’s that going to work?”

“As long as I’d like to see the places too, I can drive you both.”

“I’d better speak to Bell.”

“Why don’t you phone her now and—”

“Hey, Bell.” He sounded almost as surprised as I felt, if rather more delighted. “Did we wake you?”

“I just heard my name.”

“It’s my dad again, asking if we want a lift to Thelma’s places.”

“You don’t look too keen.”

“I am if you are.”

“You’d expect him to be as interested as us, wouldn’t you? And he knew her before—”

“Before what, Bell?”

“That’s what I said. He knew her before.”

I would have spoken if Roy hadn’t said “So where are we going today?”

“I was thinking Brightspring.”

“That’s not too far, is it? No need to make dad drive all the way here as well.”

I wondered if I should have established “Are you at your mother’s, Roy?”

“She was kind,” Bella said, “and she found me a bed.”

“It’s no trouble to pick you and Roy up there. It’s on the way to Brightspring, isn’t it?”

“Might be,” Roy admitted.

“Let your father come, Roy. Maybe with more people we’ll see more. How long will you be, Patrick?”

“I’m leaving now. Less than an hour.”