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To her house. To their house. Their. Again the word doesn’t seem to fit. At least there is an occupational therapist waiting for them there, one who has been making all the rehabilitative arrangements, preparing his medication, sorting out the beds and chairs. And Niall has briefed the hospital staff about the need for discretion: it would be in everyone’s interests if the press didn’t hear about this homecoming.
    ‘What was it like in the cave?’ Hannah asks abruptly, surprising herself with the bluntness of her question. She has avoided asking it and the avoidance has built up a pressure in her mind. ‘It must have been …’ She can’t think of a way to finish the sentence. It must have been what? She has no frame of reference.
    When Edward’s voice eventually drifts over from the back seat it is distant, as though through a mist. ‘Can we talk about it later? I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just I need to …’
    Hannah adjusts her rear-view mirror again so that she has a better view of her father’s face. He is staring out of a window braided with rain, nodding as if in mental preparation for a difficult conversation. Bracing himself.
    ‘What was Niall like while I was away?’
    She considers this. ‘He was like our protector. Kept promising hewould get you back for us. He was devastated when Mum died.’
    ‘Why won’t anyone tell me how it happened?’
    Hannah answers too brightly, unable to find the right tone. ‘She was found floating in the sea off the Cornish coast. Near Doyden Point. The coastguard said she could have drifted in the current.’ She thinks: if I stick to facts, that will be OK, won’t it?
    ‘She drowned?’
    ‘She’d been in the water a couple of days. The coroner’s report mentioned “injuries consistent with an impact”.’
    ‘Hit by a boat?’
    ‘They think it’s more likely she fell on to … She fell from a considerable height.’
    Hannah has a sudden, unambiguous sense that her father is angry with her, something to do with the way his eyes in the mirror narrow and harden. He seems angry that his daughter is here and his wife isn’t.
    ‘What was she doing up there?’ There is accusation in his question.
    ‘Doyden Point was her favourite place. We used to have picnics up there. You remember?’
    ‘I know all that.’ Impatience in his voice now. ‘How did she seem when you saw her last?’
    ‘Fine. She’d rented the cottage for a week.’
    ‘On her own?’
    ‘She did that sometimes, when she needed a break from the campaign. It was a full-time job for her. The vigils. The TV and radio appearances. Fundraising …’ She knows he has heard about the Friends of Edward Northcote campaign already, but she doubts he has taken much of it in. Perhaps, she thinks, if I raise the subject again now it will deflect the fear I am feeling, fear of this stranger who used to be my father.
    But she knows it is also guilt she is feeling: in an effort to escape the relentless campaigning at home, she had sometimes gone to stay with friends, leaving her mother alone and vulnerable. She hadbeen asked on that Cornish trip and had said no. ‘I spoke to her on the phone that day,’ Hannah says in a rush, her voice cracking. ‘She told me she was going for a walk.’ There are tears on her cheeks now. ‘She sounded fine. I didn’t know. It wasn’t my fault.’
    For the first time Hannah catches her father’s eyes and sees something approaching paternal warmth in them. It is as if the biological fact of her tears has made him see her as his daughter at last, reminding him that his role is to protect her.
    ‘She loved walking along those coastal paths,’ Edward says in a gentler voice. ‘Especially in bad weather, when she was wrapped up warm underneath a raincoat. She said it made her feel cosy. More alive.’
    ‘They found one of her hiking boots up there,’ Hannah says, feeling stronger. ‘At the Point. She might have taken it off to rub her foot.’ She sees her