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‘Arlo!’

He’d barely reached the end of the gardens when Katie called to him, jogging over the lawns. Although his spirits sank a little, he waited for her to catch up.

‘W-wait. Arlo,’ she said, slightly out of breath, ‘are you OK? I suppose I don’t need to ask. I think I heard you cry out in the night. I was awake too. I would have come up but I didn’t want to make a fuss because I knew you’d hate it.’

His stomach churned. ‘Was it that bad?’

‘You only called out twice, I think, and Pongo barked a couple of times. I was looking at my phone when I heard and I knew it was a nightmare. How could I not recognise it when I’ve been there myself?’

Arlo swore and then apologised. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No. Don’t be! It’s Ned’s fault for pushing you. I was so disappointed in him, to be honest.’

‘He’s only being Ned. He’s no idea of what really happened so I can’t blame him.’

‘He should know better than trying to feed off someone else’s trauma.’ She touched his arm and let her fingers rest there and Arlo almost lost it. Tears stung the back of his eyes but he blinked them back. ‘What did happen?’ she said with infinite gentleness. ‘Would it help to tell me or shall I leave you alone?’

‘No, don’t leave me alone,’ he said; then, feeling he’d sounded desperate, he added, ‘Stay. I ought to tell you.’

‘“Ought” doesn’t come into it,’ she said, taking her hand from his arm. ‘But if it helps, I’m here to listen.’

Arlo took a deep breath. ‘It can’t make things worse. Can we walk out of sight of the house first? To the boathouse?’

‘Of course. Come on.’

They set off, with Pongo snuffling around them, clearly delighted at a second outing so close to his morning run. Arlo focused on the present moment: the sounds of a distant boat engine, the tang of woodsmoke, the crisp leaves under his boots, and Katie, walking by his side, a calming empathetic presence.

He stopped by the boathouse. ‘If I’m going to tell anyone, it might as well be you,’ he said, staring out over the lake.

She laughed softly. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘I hope so. I mean it as one.’

He turned his eyes on her and sighed before he began.

‘It was a few years ago in Nepal. I was overseeing an exercise in the mountains when I was called to an incident. It had been raining non-stop for days and two of our group had become trapped in a cave that was filling up with water. When I got there, the officer in charge of that group had called for specialist help but I knew within a few minutes that our rescue team would arrive too late.’

Katie covered her mouth with her hand, probably guessing what was coming but not wanting to interrupt him. Arlo didn’t want to stop either because he wasn’t sure he’d have the nerve to recount the disaster again.

‘The guys had less than an hour left before they’d be engulfed by the flood water, so I made the decision to go in and try to get them out. Two of my team insisted on coming with me. I should have ordered them to stay back but – they wanted to come and I realised I couldn’t have got the others out alone …’ He hesitated, his chest tightening with stress and panic.

Sweat broke out on the small of his back. It had been so long since he’d told anyone what happened. In fact, he couldn’t remember telling anyone outside of the inquiry that followed. He hadn’t even felt able to tell Rowan the full details.

‘Please go on.’ Katie touched his arm again, her fingers making his skin tingle. It was also comforting, though, and it freed him up enough to continue.

‘We made it inside the entrance and squeezed through a narrow section somehow.’

Katie visibly flinched.

‘Then the space opened up to a cavern about fifty feet below. On the descent, the rope must have snagged on some rocks. Both men were dangling from it. It was damaged and I knew it could have failed at any moment.’

‘Oh my God.’ Her eyes widened in horror.

‘I had to act immediately. We managed to haul the first guy out but then realised the second guy was injured and we couldn’t haul him out without causing him a lot of pain. So I made the decision to abseil down with another man to try to put him on a stretcher. We achieved that and they hauled the man up, but then, as I was about to climb back up, my rope failed and I fell.’

Her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Arlo …’

‘I was lucky. I fell into shallow water that helped to cushion my fall but that meant I was at the bottom and the water was rising rapidly. I knew my arm was broken but I managed to cling to a rock and keep my head above the water. I was now the casualty. One of my team abseiled down and got me in a harness and the others pulled me out but …’